I Tried
by Furor Paxx
Summary: My attempt at humor. I think I failed, I'm just too dry to crack funny jokes. Anyhow, Kurt goes missing and Scott quits the XMen. What does all this have to do with the Brotherhood? Everything...
1. Stories

A/N  
  
Dedicated to Sniper67. Yo. My first attempt at slash comedy. I think I got the slash down, it's the funniness that's gonna kill me. Where this is going... I dunno. I'll figure that out later. Basically I'm gonna screw everything up again, though not in so final a way as I usually do. This first part, well... It's not scary, but it's not funny. The next one'll be funny. I promise : )  
  
"I Tried"  
  
FurorPaxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 1- Stories  
  
"It was a dark and stormy night, yo, just like in all the horror movies. You ever notice how they never st-"  
  
"Stop. Stop. Toad. You suck at telling stories."   
  
Todd Tolansky lazily looked at Pietro, who was sprawled across the couch. Well, except for his feet which had been dumped on the floor by Lance. He was talking on the phone. One guess who...  
  
"Lance get off the phone. It's your turn to tell a story." Pietro ran a hand through his silvery hair as he contemplated the many ways his friend would just re-word something that actually happened. 'It'll probably have Kitty in it.'  
  
Lance actually hung up the phone then, smiling like a maniac. "She said that blue freak ran off again. He's been disappearing a lot. Ya' think it's his power?"  
  
"Cute. Your turn." Pietro yawned, the perfect image of nonchalance- or at least to people who weren't used to picking up on these things.  
  
"What's up 'Tro?" Freddy asked as Pietro checked every door and every window in the old house. He shuttered, locked and pulled the curtains on all the windows and bolted all the doors.  
  
"Might I remind you that the freak show we're talking about doesn't use doors?" Lance watched as Pietro settled back on the couch.  
  
"I feel safer anyway. So are you gonna tell a story or not?"  
  
"Oh come on. You know you're the only one who tells good stories. Except..." Lance's face twisted as he remembered some of Pietro's past stories.  
  
"Yo. I'm too young to hear that kinda stuff." Todd chimed in.  
  
"It's not that bad." Pietro protested and looked to Freddy for help.   
  
"I liked the bunny story, but the end was bad."  
  
"You guys have no appreciation for good storytelling."  
  
"Pietro," Lance leaned forward and ran a hand through his hair in an agitated manner. "You were telling a bunny story to help Freddy sleep. Why the Hell did you end it with the bunnies getting sick and dying horrible deaths? In detail."  
  
"Well, that's what happens in chemical warfare. How can I help it that I'm accurate? You need to know about these types of things so you can prepare for your death."  
  
"Pietro..."  
  
"Okay, okay. I'll tell a story without death, without torture, with suspense. That cool?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Alrighty then." Pietro cleared his throat and consciously slowed his speech. "He was waiting for a sign of her existence. For hundreds of years sailors spoke of Wicashaw's Mermaid, but other than glances every now and then, no one had gotten a good look at her. His name was Samuel. It was the way of sailors to name their sons after Bible figures in the hopes that when they followed their fathers to sea, God would look kindly on them. Samuel was different. He would never sail a boat and chances were, would ever have a son to name after a Bible character. You see, Samuel was blind. Everyday he stood on that pier he heard the sounds of a life he could never have, a life he could never stop craving. He was working on a way though. Sam was only ten, but the vast majority of sailors start when they're sixteen. That didn't leave much time for a blind boy to learn how to see on a boat. The biggest problem was that his mother didn't like the idea of him on a boat at all, even just as a passenger. To her, Sam's being blind was a blessing, not a curse, because it meant that at least one of her sons would never be lost at sea. It also meant that she had at least one helping hand that she could count on. At this very moment, she was at home waiting for Sam to get back with some pastries she had ordered from the baker. Little Sam always took forever on errands, but he was blind- what could one expect? Thank goodness she never found out about how much time he spent at the pier..." Pietro got up and checked a few windows again before returning with a glass of water. He stared at Lance for a second before he remembered where he was in the story.  
  
"When Samuel got home, he found his mother had guests. Like all good mothers, Ms. Sammy's Mom decided that her son needed to get out and play more. She usehered the kids outside, urged them to play nicely and went back in to discuss the latest gossip with their parents. Sammy and the two other kids stared at each other. Or to be more accurate, they stared at Sammy, who was listening to them breathe and guaging how tall they both were. It was ackward for a while, until Sam showed the two (Alexandra and Matthew) the tree house his great grandfather had built. It wasn't so much in the tree as part of the tree itself. The entrance was carved in the wood and you had to crawl through a long tunnel to get inside. Once you were there, it was well worth the effort. Hundreds of cool little trinkets were everywhere, things that once had names and purposes but were lost to time." Pietro's eyes glazed over as he described the tree house, but then, everyone was so caught up in the story that it took a moment to register the sound of knocking at the door. "I'll get it, slowly." Pietro said. He ran to the door and waited as the other mutants hurriedly straightened things up. If Mystique was returning, there was no reason to have her yell at them so soon. Once Lance gave the thumbs up, Pietro flung open the door as if he had just raced to it.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"What are you doing here?" Pietro demanded in a harsh whisper and stepped outside.  
  
"I missed you."  
  
"Very funny. Do you know what happens if-"  
  
"Who is it?" Lance called from the TV room.  
  
"Ah. Personal visit." Pietro shot back.  
  
"Oh. Tell Wanda I said hi." There was the sound of snickering.  
  
"I look like Wanda?"  
  
"This is serious. People are getting suspicious. Kitty said... what is that?"  
  
"My lucky bag."  
  
"Your lucky bag. You only take that when you go camping." Pietro fell backwards suddenly as Todd pulled on the door. "Go away Todd. It's not Wanda."  
  
"Yo, I bet it isn't."  
  
"Hang on a sec." Pietro ducked inside and, within a second, re-emerged. "You're going camping alone?"  
  
"Actually... I'm defecting."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yeah. It's just... I don't know. I'm tired of the X-Men. It's getting crowded, too."  
  
Pietro smiled. "Is that your excuse?"  
  
"That's the only one I'll say out loud."  
  
"Good enough for me. Welcome to the Brotherhood." Pietro opened the door for the newcomer.  
  
"Thanks. I like it already. It reminds me of my old home."  
  
"Hey guys, we've got a new member."  
  
"Is she hot?"   
  
"Shut up, Lance."  
  
"Uh. Yo. Pietro."  
  
"Yep."  
  
"You realize you let a X-Man in our house."  
  
"Former X-Man."  
  
Lance peered down the stairs and Freddy paused with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth.  
  
"And you realize that it's... you know... him."  
  
"Yeah. Kurt defected. He wants to be with the Brotherhood." 


	2. Rooms

A/N   
  
Logic depicts that I wait for feedback before writing a second chapter, so common sense depicts that the inspiration for it come before I finish posting the first. Okay. We'll work with it... Here's to funniness.  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 2- Rooms  
  
"Three questions. What is defected, why should we trust him, and what happens when Summers finds out?"  
  
"Defecting is when you switch sides, trust me- we can trust him and the same thing that'll happen when Daniels finds out." Pietro was glaring daggers at Todd, but he didn't notice because was waging his own battle with Night Crawler. The two had never been on good terms, but to force them to live together was... dangerous, even considering how both preferred to avoid confrontations. After all, it was the little things, like snakes in your bed and hairballs in your food that irk the most.  
  
"And that basically means they're gonna come over here, trash us and the house and accuse us of brainwashing him."  
  
"They can have him." Todd muttered.  
  
"Hey. If they don't know he's here then he can help us out if we get in a fight, right?" Freddy blinked as all eyes turned on him. "I mean. He knows their weak points, just like we know each other's soft spots, so when the X-Men come and say we kidnapped him, he can tell us how to kick their butts."  
  
"Yeah. No more losing to the X-Geeks." Lance said to himself, slowly warming to the idea of a former enemy in the same house.  
  
"So it's cool. Three out of four. Majority rules. C'mon, my room's up here." Pietro led Kurt up the stairs.  
  
"Why are they so... friendly?"  
  
"I dunno, but I don't like what my mind is conjuring up. I think a tour of the house would be the first thing, don't you?"  
  
"It's getting late. Saturday morning cartoons wait for no one. 'Night all." Freddy dumped the popcorn bowl in the kitchen before he disappeared to his side of the house. That left Todd and Lance staring at each other uncomfortably.   
  
"Well. What an unusual turn of events."  
  
"We'll get revenge. One way or another."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Someone was pounding on the door. Pietro sniffed. He smelled Kurt. It was nice kind of smell that didn't really smell like anything in particular. Nothing was burning, which was unusual for a Saturday morning. The knocking started again. Kurt lazily opened an eye.  
  
"Probably just Todd. I'll get it." Pietro slid out of bed in his boxers and hurled the door open. Three seconds passed and Kurt sat up, concerned.  
  
"Scott!?"  
  
"Kurt? Why are you half naked in Pietro's bed?"  
  
"Ah, wait a minute! Why are you here at all?"  
  
"I quit the X-Men. Lance said I could stay here and try being a member of the Brotherhood. How long have you been coming here like this? The Professor is really getting worried about you."  
  
"You can't stay here, I defected first!"  
  
"Defected? You can't defect without telling anyone. Right now you're just shacking. Breakfast is ready." Scott Summers shook his head disapprovingly and walked away. Pietro just stared after him.  
  
"Scott Summers is with the Brotherhood?" They stood/sat in silence for a while.  
  
"This is terrible."  
  
"Hey, 'Tro, can I borrow some socks?" Todd asked as he neatly leapt over Pietro's head and into his room without waiting for an answer. "Yo. Why is the blue freak half naked in your bed?"  
  
"I like to think of it as half dressed."  
  
"Tro. You and me... we're gonna have to have one serious talk after breakfast. Havin' him here is one thing, but how long have you two been-"  
  
"Get out!" Pietro pushed the solemn Todd out of his bedroom. "Moron."  
  
"What do you think? Half naked or half dressed?"  
  
"Kurt..."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"I'm disturbed by this. Very disturbed by this." Scott muttered over a cup of coffee. Lance had made it, so it was very strong. The funny thing was, Scott never drank coffee at the Institute. It tasted weird coming from that weird little coffeemaker, but here, Lance just dumped some grinds in a pot of boiling water and strained it into a cup. It tasted... right.  
  
"I mean. Doesn't he have a heart at all? Sleeping with my greatest enemy? How could he? When did he stop liking girls?" Todd was nursing his cup, tea if Scott's guess was right. Who would have thought Todd drank something as genteel as Earl Gray? Come to think of it, he didn't look half as ratty in the morning as he did by the afternoon.  
  
"Maybe it's like Romeo and Juliet." Freddy offered as he walked past. "Johnny Quest comes on soon. Wanna see?"  
  
"No thank you."  
  
"I never expected something like this from Kurt. Well, not with a guy. I mean. He always seemed to be such the ladies' man." Scott conceded.  
  
"So. Why are all you X-Men dropping out now?" Lance asked from his perch on the counter.  
  
"I'm just tired of trying to keep up with all the new recruits. No one seems to pay attention to me anymore."  
  
"Not even Jean?"  
  
"Don't even go there. I'm tired of chasing after her. If she thinks Duncan is her type, then fine."  
  
"Touchy subject, huh?"  
  
"Yeah. She was three hours late to a date with me because she was with Duncan."  
  
"Ouch."  
  
"Talk about it."  
  
"Hey! What's for breakfast?"  
  
"Breakfast is over. We had Freddy clean up already." Todd glared at Pietro.  
  
"Yeah, right." Pietro raced to the stove top and peered into one of the pans. "Is it safe?"  
  
"Yeah. Scott fixed it." Lance answered  
  
"We're on a first name basis now?" Pietro asked, suspicions rising.  
  
"He's one of us, right? Trust Pietro. Trust."  
  
The word hung there like a dead creature suspended by the faith they had all once had in each other.  
  
"Okay." Pietro said. "Hey, Kurt, you want a omelette?"  
  
"Yep. Scott's a good cook when he wants to be. I remember once he almost set the Institute on fire because he was pretending to be a bad dcook so he wouldn't get food duty."  
  
Lance's shoulders drooped. There was no getting through to Pietro.  
  
"So do you guys have any plans for today?" Scott asked.  
  
"Not really." Lance answered before Kurt could warn him.  
  
"Then we can work on straightening this place up."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Renovating it. There's enough of us. If we do a floor a week this house'll be good as new in about a month. By then we'll have jobs and be able to pay for Freddy and Kurt to eat every day."  
  
"Yeah, we do have two more mouths to feed."  
  
"Six. Me, myself, I, my otherself and it. And then there's Scott." Kurt smiled and snuck a forkful of sausage off Pietro's plate.  
  
"Hell why not? We need a service project now that villany has gone outta style."  
  
"Can I paint? I wanna paint!"  
  
"Fine 'Tro. You're our decorator. Any plans about how we do this, Summers?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Good. Let's take this outside. Tro, get paper. You, hurry up eating."  
  
"Ofay, Boff." Kurt swished his tail. Maybe he'd get to work on the roof... 


	3. Renovations

Three hours later, they had a plan. First they would clean out the garage.  
  
"Do we need this?"  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Ah. It's a... ah. Hm."  
  
"Throw it in the box of things to sell."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"How 'bout we sell these to a museum? I think it's a typewriter but it might be a sewing machine. And this is definitely a TV."  
  
"That's a radio, Lance. You put a picture in that screen there."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"I like old stuff."  
  
"Oh. Still. You think a museum would want it?"  
  
"Let's clean it up and find out."  
  
"We are selling this stuff, right?"  
  
Then came the visit from the museum curator.  
  
"Interesting. We don't have models like this at the museum... do you have the paperwork?"  
  
"Paperwork? We just found it here."  
  
"You don't mean to sell it without paperwork verifying its authenticity, do you?"  
  
After that was the yard sale.  
  
"I saw that kid, you tried to walk off with those baseball cards..."  
  
"No, mister, I swear I didn't."  
  
"You can have 'em for three bucks."  
  
"But I didn't-"  
  
"What did you say kid?"  
  
"Here Mister."  
  
"That was low, Lance, even for you."  
  
"Shut up, Summers. We're in the business to make a profit."  
  
After the yard sale, they would transfer the furniture from the basement into the garage.  
  
"OH MY GOD!! IT'S A RAT!! A GIANT ONE TOO!!!"  
  
"Pietro. It's dead."  
  
"BUT IT'S HERE!! IT EXISTS!!"  
  
"The broom is shedding. We need a new one. Run to the store and pick one up, Pietro."  
  
"Hey, Lance. You remember that cat Freddy brought home?"  
  
"The one that disappeared. Yeah." Lance prodded the body. "Pietro always did say it looked like a rat."  
  
"I think it was a possum."  
  
"That may have been the case."  
  
Once the furniture was removed, a blueprint of the floor was drawn up and ideas for decorating were thrown around.  
  
"I drew it as accurately as possible. So are we gonna go with different themes in each room or just one straight color or wallpaper with a border? The theme part will be more expensive, we may have to get rid of some of our furniture to get new stuff, but it raises the overall value of the house, however, the simple way means that it'll be easier to pick furniture that matches each room, you can mix and match- whatever."  
  
"Well, which will take longer?"  
  
"Themes."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"We have one hundred rooms to develop themes for-"  
  
"This house has a hundred rooms?"  
  
"Yeah. Three floors, basement, cellar and attic. Anyhow. There are some rooms that might not need separate themes. Bathrooms, bedrooms, walk-in closets..."  
  
"Let's do this one floor at a time."  
  
"That's what I mean. Are we gonna use earth themes on the bottom-most floors, how will we do the halls? This floor is basically how we're gonna decorate the rest of the house."  
  
"We'll trust you with that decision."  
  
"You sure."  
  
"Don't let us down."  
  
"Okay..."  
  
After plans for decorating were soldified, there was white paint to be bought to whitewash the walls so sketches of each 'theme' could be drawn.  
  
"The basement has three rooms and a hallway. The stairwell doesn't really count. Basically, we want everything in here white. Nice smooth paint job, two or three layers, got it men?"  
  
"Pietro. This is a bit much." Lance looked down at the layers upon layers of 'paint protection' Pietro had given them.  
  
"I'm Major Harry Hands."  
  
"Freddy, it wasn't funny. Where's Kurt? Why's he not helping?"  
  
"He's polishing the chandeliers on the first floor. Now, if you start to feel light headed-"  
  
"Go outside. We know dammit."  
  
"Okay. Go for it."  
  
The sketches would be pencilings of what Pietro would later go back and paint in. Since he, Kurt and Todd were the only ones with artistic liscenses, they were the most actively involved in this part.  
  
"A few earthworms here and there, and don't forget roots. We want it look like the walls aren't here and you're staring right outside."  
  
"Isn't there anything nice underground? Something that doesn't crawl or slither?"  
  
"Pipes?"  
  
"Dog poop."  
  
"Nice. You two are so imaginative."  
  
"Buried treasure."  
  
"Skeletons."  
  
"Enough."  
  
While they drew, the others busied themselves with buying the paint that they asked for and polishing the furniture that was in the garage.   
  
"Wow. I like this color."  
  
"Man, it's like three shades lighter once you get all the dirt off. It makes all the difference, though."  
  
"Yo, check this out, the wood is white!"  
  
"No joke? I think it's blonde oak, I saw it on TV once. Looked like mahogany with all that crap on it, what'd you use?"  
  
"Mike's grime strips."  
  
"Seriously? I thought you would have used the sander on this bad boy."  
  
"Yeah it needs it, but I thought, what the hell, why not let the Vitamin C work it's way in first."  
  
"Ya' know that cheap stuff from the corner store works good too."  
  
"Yeah? I'm gonna try that. Have you used the pick?"  
  
"No, but Scott said that baby really feels good."  
  
"Aw, man. You have no idea. Around those edges there, scrapes the scum right off."  
  
"No kidding?"  
  
Even though they went well over their self-allotted week, none of the mutants seemed to notice. Likewise, the X-Men didn't seem to notice that Kurt had taken up residence with them, or at least they never commented on it.   
  
"It's been two weeks since I got in a fight."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So why am I still so sore?"  
  
"It's your muscles, man. They're proud of you for doing such a good job. You really know how to handle that sander."  
  
"Well, you know how electric tools are. Gotta show her who's boss."  
  
"Yo."  
  
Once the paint had dried, there remained a question of what to put on the floor.  
  
"What to put on the floor... what to put on the floor..."  
  
"A couple of throw rugs and then let's move on. I want to strip more furniture."  
  
"Hey, I bought a few throw rugs that would look great in the basement." Kurt threw the throwrugs to Lance.  
  
"Is this okay?"  
  
"It'll do."  
  
"So we start over, right? The moving and the painting and the stripping, right? Right?"  
  
"Jesus, Lance. It's just a power stipper."  
  
"It's the sexiest PowerPro Stipper I've ever laid eyes on."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Uh. Kitty, baby. Hey-"  
  
"You know what Lance, I knew this would so, like, happen. It is so over."  
  
"What is she talking about?"  
  
"Women. They can't appreciate a man's toys..." 


	4. Meetings

A/N  
  
This is Furor on seltzer. Pinapple flavored seltzer as if that's not bad enough. This humor thing, it's growing on me. Now I have this really weird looking thing like a third arm, only it's stickingout of my head. It's useful though. For pouring more seltzer into my cup. I can't drink with it because then I can't see the screen. Yup.  
  
Thanks to Erin and Nightstone131302 for reviewing...  
  
"I Tried"  
  
FurorPaxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 4- Meetings  
  
"No. No, that's not what I meant at all. No, not a stripper, a... c'mon Kitty, hear me out. The guys and I were working on fixing the place up. We bought an electric sander and stripper and... well, I meant it like... Corvette kind of sexy. What? Hang on." Lance grabbed Pietro by the arm as he ran past. "Why didn't you tell me there's a girl named Corvette? Who the Hell names a girl Corvette?"  
  
"I don't know. Tell her it was a Black and Decker."  
  
"I did, she took it the wrong way."  
  
"Find Scott."  
  
"He said he never approved of our relationship and he's not gonna help. Pietro. Help. I need your expertice."  
  
"Fine, since you so graciously acknowledge it."  
  
Lance sighed with relief and turned back to the phone. "Kitty, look, I know it may have seemed like something shady was going on, but really, it's not." He read off a paper that Pietro held up for him. "Hey, I know what, you can come see what... we've done so far. Hang on." Lance covered the phone up. "Are you insane? This place is a worse mess than before! I can't invite her over here!"  
  
"Well she wants to see the house. She ain't gonna believe you're being true unless you divulge your most painful secrets."  
  
"You mean. I have to explain to her how to use the stripper?"  
  
"I'm afraid so."  
  
Lance looked distraught.  
  
"Think if it this way buddy. She might get you one of those heavy duty screwdriver sets."  
  
"Like Tim Allen uses?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So, what do you say, Kitty? The place is still in the works, but once we're done it'll look great. Now? Okay. Sure, no problem. Bye." Lance hung up. "Pietro. Big problem. She wants to come over now."  
  
"You warned her. What's the problem?"  
  
"Kurt."  
  
"Oh. That is a problem."  
  
Kurt had gone on a shopping trip with Todd and Scott to nearby Urbway. So far, the X-Men still had no idea that he was living with the Brotherhood, or under what circumstances he had joined. If certain people found out, the results would be disasterous. As far as they knew, Kurt had run away. There were those who had their suspicions, after all Kurt had been happy, right? Then again, no one could deny that his behavior up until his departure had been... erratic. He would leave after curfew and come back right before Logan began his rounds. After a while he didn't even bother hiding the fact that he was leaving. If he walked in while Kitty was at the Brotherhood Mansion, there was no way that Evan wouldn't find out about Kurt's betrayal. Then, well. Things would get progressively worse as Rogue and Logan found out. Sure, there was Jean and Kitty and the Professor. At least they wouldn't flip, but that didn't help much.  
  
"So what do we do?"  
  
"You do your thing, I'll keep an eye out for them. I'll get Kurt to hide out.  
  
"But. Scott has the car."  
  
"You have all the luck don't you."  
  
"Damn it. Even when we're on the same team, Summers always finds a way to ruin things for me."  
  
As if to mock Lance's pain, the telephone and doorbell rang at the same time. Lance picked up the phone and Pietro headed for the door.  
  
"Yeah." Lance muttered darkly into the phone.  
  
"You will put Pietro on the phone now."  
  
"Pietro. It's Wanda. Who's at the door? Pietro?"  
  
"Are you sure it's Wanda on the phone?"  
  
"She said I will put you on it. No questions. She's gonna hex you if you don't hurry."  
  
"I am right here, and since when did I need a reason to hex dear Pietro?" a haughty voice enunciated in clipped tones. "Direct me to the imposter."  
  
Pietro led his sister to the telephone and then he and Lance settle back to watch the... fireworks.  
  
"Who are you and why are you talking to my brother? You will pay for your insolence, fool. Mark my words, something painful involving electricity will happen to you within the hour. Hoax?! You dare call me a hoax?!" The call was terminated by a rather large and energetic hex bolt. "What is going on here? This place is worse than usual."  
  
"Uh. Wanda... are you feeling okay? You seem to be very... talkative. Hyper. Un-Wanda-ish. Sort of." She turned on Lance and Pietro shrunk in on himself.   
  
"As a matter of fact, I'm feeling happy right now. It hurts, this feeling. I like this pain. Am I making sense?"  
  
There was a moment of silence as Lance fought to come up with a witty comeback, but it was taking too long and his three-second-window of opportunity closed. So did the five second window, and the ten second and finally Wanda grew bored of waiting for a reaction from him and backed off.  
  
"I smell stripper." Wanda inhaled and shakily walked, unerringly, to the room where all the paints, stippers, cleaners and equipment was being stored. "Ooooooh. Paint."  
  
"Pietro. Your sister's high."  
  
She whirled on Lance again. "I am not. I'm just happy. Happy. Are you trying to steal this from me? Are you?" She sniffed pathetically, a move that Pietro claimed to have invented.  
  
"So why are you so happy?"  
  
"He kissed me." She grinned broadly before wandering out of the room.  
  
Lance and Pietro merely stood there. "Must be the fumes. Distorting the sound waves or something."  
  
"Yeah. Or maybe all this DIY is getting to our heads. Making us hear things."  
  
"That sounds about right."  
  
So they muttered promises to take it easy on the stripper for a while and then went out to find their hallucinated version of Pietro's sister. She was in the kitchen.  
  
"So I said sure, and we walked over to his house and he taught me how to bake cookies and then we went out in the garden and then he kissed me."  
  
"Wow. You are so lucky. I don't think Mr. Perfect would ever wanna kiss me." Freddy said as he passed a bag of cookies to Wanda.  
  
"Oh, I dunno. Maybe he's just waiting to meet you or something. It happened to me, who's to say it can't happen to you."  
  
"You know what Wanda. You just may be right. I wonder where he is now..."  
  
They sat in comfortable silence as a horrified Pietro and Lance looked on. Until the phone rang. Pietro was right beside it, so he picked it up. After a moment of silence, a voice tentatively said hi.  
  
"Who are you?" Pietro asked rudely.  
  
"Uh. My name's Kaysin. Does Wanda Maximoff live there?"  
  
"Wanda? Live here?"  
  
"Oh, oh! That's me, that's him, that's mine." She burbled happily (though maintaining her strength through the pain) and raced for the phone- in a different room.  
  
"She's coming."  
  
"Thanks. Who.. is this?"  
  
"I'm her current lover. Let me tell you, when she pulls out the ropes, run. Cause the tongs always follow, man, and tongs mean scissors, if you know what I mean."  
  
"Oh, don't worry. My imagination is taking care of everything you're not." Wanda came on then, with a long and innocent 'Hello.' It took one hell of an imagination to miss exactly how NOT innocent it was, so when Kaysin answered with a simple 'Oh, hey Wanda.' Pietro figured that his warning had gotten through.  
  
"So. What now?"  
  
"Kitty..."  
  
"I would suggest you call her, but I guess Wanda's making life difficult again."  
  
"Hey, why don't you invite Wanda's boyfriend over. He has a car. Ask him to get Kitty. He'll do it. He's nice like that." Freddy said around a mouthful of cookies.  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"He bakes and keeps a garden."  
  
"Yeah. Sounds like a pansy." Pietro mumbled.  
  
"Great idea Freddy." Lance said as he took off to find Wanda.  
  
"Great idea Freddy. Now we're gonna have Kitty, Mr. Perfect and my sister here all at the same time. All we need now is Mystique and my dad to come back." Pietro turned around and stared straight into a pair of icy blue eyes framed by white hair. Freddy caught him just before he hit the ground. 


	5. Busted

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 5- Busted  
  
"I'm really sorry, I don't know why he just collapsed like that."  
  
"This is Pietro we're talking about. He doesn't need a reason."  
  
Pietro Maximoff slowly opened his eyes. THe first thing he saw was his father standing over him with a worried expression on his face. But... Magneto worried about his son...  
  
"I dunno. I heard somewhere that girls usually marry men who remind them of their father, but this is a bit much." Lance said. Kitty was beside him, with a startled look on her face. So she made it after all.  
  
"My father is a great man, just... confused. He's evil, not ugly. And it's not like that, really." Wanda was defending him.   
  
Pietro moaned and closed his eyes. The voices mixed and then separated themselves in a weird audial dance that only he was aware of. Of course, when he opened his eyes, he wasn't surprised that the colors were doing the same, only visual and all that that entailed. When the dances finally stopped, Pietro became aware of several things. First was the fact that he was lying on a table. Second was that Magneto was still staring at him. Third was that Magneto was now talking to him. Fourth was that Kitty was here and a car just pulled up and ohmigod someone has to warn Kurt before he-  
  
BAMF  
  
into the house and finds not only Kitty (which indirectly meant Evan, Rogue and Logan) but Magneto waiting for him.  
  
"Ah. Guten Tag."  
  
"Too late and there goes the gumball." Pietro muttered.  
  
There was a silence as everyone first decided whether to figure out what Pietro was talking about or just ignore him and worry about how to react the sudden apperance of Kurt. Then there was the awkward pause as the mutants realized that Magneto's look-alike might not be mutant-friendly and someone was going to fall if he wasn't. Of course, he felt the pressure, being a sensative kind of guy, so he offered a way for them to save face.  
  
"Wow. What an entrance."  
  
"Danke."  
  
"You know, my mother was born in Germany. Dortmund."  
  
"Ja? I'm not sure where exactly I was born, but when I was in the circus in Munich-"  
  
"Kurt. Out. Now." Lance growled.  
  
"He's been here all along? And you didn't tell me, even though I told you he was missing? Lance, you... you..."  
  
"Aw, but Kitty..."  
  
"No. I should have known this would happen. You're so inconsiderate! We were looking EVERYWHERE for him."  
  
"Kitty, before you get angry, ask him why he left."  
  
"What?! Why should I?!"  
  
"Yo, I didn't want it. Pietro did."  
  
"Pietro?" Kitty whirled on him, only to find Kurt crouched at his side checking to see that he didn't have a concussion. "Kurt... why are you here?"  
  
"I defected." He said as though it happened everyday. Then Scott walked in.  
  
"Scott! I am so totally glad you're here!"  
  
"Really? I thought you'd be mad. That's why I didn't tell anyone but the Professor."  
  
"Are you kidding? Man, if we had known you were tracking Kurt down we would have helped, but I guess you knew what you were doing. Right." Kitty's tone went flat as everyone found something else to look at. "Scott. Why, why are you here? The Professor said... you were going to a new... a new..."  
  
"Kitty. I think it's time you went home."  
  
"No, but... Ah. Kurt. He's, is he... he is, isn't he."  
  
"C'mon. The car's in the front."  
  
"I don't believe this, I mean. Both of you? Why?!"  
  
"The Brotherhood needs me more than the X-Men. And it's getting crowded there."  
  
"Yeah, like, whatever. This has something to do with Jean doesn't it? Yes..." Kitty nodded, she was on a roll. "She stood you up one too many times and now you're getting back at her. Man, you are reaching new depths, Scott. And you..." Here she turned on Kurt. "I know exactly what you're up to..."  
  
"Get over yourself, Kitty. I did, almost a year ago. I'm not here to make anyone feel guilty. I just got tired of slinking around the place and decided to move in. This isn't the type of thing to discuss in front of company, so maybe you should just run back to the Institute and gather everyone else so we can get this over with all at once." With that and a disdainful flick of his tail, Kurt and Pietro 'ported out of the kitchen.  
  
"So, I guess I'll just come back at another time." Magneto said.   
  
"Ah, maybe that's best. Sorry about everything, Jay." Wanda actually sounded apologetic as she walked him to the door.  
  
"Give us a call. Kaysin's looking forward to meeting your brother, though I wonder if Pietro feels the same."  
  
"Pietro will. Believe me. Pietro will..."  
  
Back in the kitchen, Kitty was still in denial. "A joke, or something. Scott wouldn't leave the X-Men. The Professor is like a father to him. And Kurt... what about Evan. What would Evan do? What did he mean, 'got tired and just moved in... a year ago... has he been..."  
  
"With Pietro." Lance nodded. "We found out about a week or two ago."  
  
"But this is Kurt we're talking about. He's not... he's... Pietro, huh..."  
  
"You gonna tell the others?"  
  
"Are you insane? They'll kill you all."  
  
"Didn't know you cared, yo." Todd stretched. He hadn't been expecting much from Kitty when she found out, but the confrontation was lamer than he thought it would be. "I'm gonna, you know, strip a few chairs or something. Later."  
  
"Lance."  
  
"Kitty."  
  
"Take me home."  
  
"Okay, Kitty."  
  
"Wait. I want to see what you've done so far..."  
  
"Okay, Kitty."  
  
Several hours later, Kitty was in her room, staring at the ceiling. There was nothing special about the way it looked, she was just admiring how well it acted like a ceiling. She vaguely noticed Rogue come in with Jean.  
  
"She's been lahk this since she came back. Spacey. Ah tried to talk t' her, but she just, you know. Ignored me."  
  
"What has Lance done this time..." Jean murmured. Kitty heard and smiled briefly. It wasn't Lance this time, it was only the two most constant people in her life.  
  
"Kitty. C'mon what's wrong?"  
  
Kitty didn't care. She really didn't. How could they just up and leave? The Brotherhood needs me more, and I decided to move in... if the X-Men killed them for deserting, then they deserved it.  
  
So Kitty smiled and focused her eyes on Jean. "This is something everyone needs to hear."  
  
Twenty minutes later, under the collective gaze of the X-Men, Kitty made her move.  
  
"Scott's joined the Brotherhood." Amid a chorus of 'He what?' and 'No, not Scott.' Kitty began laughing wildly. Everyone quieted down, waiting for the inevitable catcall.  
  
"Kurt... he's been secretly seeing someone for the past year. That's where he's gone." More gasps, mostly at the nerve of him to leave without so much as a goodbye.  
  
"So who was it? I thought he liked you." Evan said.  
  
Slowly, tears slid down Kitty's cheeks.  
  
"Pietro."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N   
  
Another double post. I crack myself up, and I live knowing I'm not the only one with a 'creative' sense of humor. Thanks to... hang on, this is a tough one... Zlankrilanchinage. Dude, I'd just about kill to know where you got that name from... Anyhow, my stuffed alligator just attacked me for the fifth time since my mom brought home an entire Bi-Lo worth of seltzer, soda and ice cream, so I'm writing as much as I can while supplies last... (maybe you should introduce Bobby to the marvel that is sugar...) 


	6. Explanations

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 6- Explanations  
  
"So you're saying that your boyfriend, Kaysin Prettyboy has a twin brother, Jaysin."  
  
"Yep. And it's Dantzler."  
  
"And Jaysin looks like dad."  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"So what does Kaysin look like?"  
  
"Um... Kaysin."  
  
"They aren't identical twins?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Really."  
  
The brother and sister sat in silence, neither looking at each other.  
  
"This is getting complicated, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
The silence between them grew, punctuated by Kurt and Toad's rather memorable attempts to sing all the long notes in Chevelle's 'Comfortable Liar.' Everyone assumed that Toad was trying to hint something to Pietro and Kurt, but as usual, they just weren't getting it.  
  
"They're getting a bit happy with my CDs, aren't they." Pietro stated. Kurt had dragged Pietro immense collection from upstairs and was busy memorizing every song from every CD. Even though Pietro had told him that even if he sang like a lark, he'd never be able to make half those songs sound decent. Kurt didn't sing like a lark. Toad sang better than Kurt and not even Pietro could admit otherwise. German accents did not work well with metal, rock and electronica. Not at all. Todd figured, at least he could keep the absolute worst songs from Kurt... or so he claimed. Since Lance was outside with the electric sander, he couldn't tell the difference. Toad had adopted a pair of earmuffs, claiming that his ears were cold. Freddy was humming right along with them, aparently he had invulnerable eardrums as well as epidermis. Wanda was already in pain, so that left Scott and Pietro to suffer.  
  
Pietro flipped through the channels, backtracking to get to the local newstation. The temperature just hit 98 degrees. As if on cue, Kurt found the super old stack of boyband CDs that Pietro had bought when people admitted to liking the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync.  
  
"Here it comes." Pietro whispered to himself. Sure enough, 98 Degrees. "I must get away."  
  
"Why don't you just find something else for them to do?" Wanda asked. She was on the phone again. They were gonna have to get a second line if things kept up.  
  
"I'm so bored, I think I'll find Daniels... maybe he's trying to break a record or something again."  
  
"You're gonna pick a fight?"  
  
"I'm tempted."  
  
Suddenly the door burst open. Without turning around, Pietro knew. Kitty had ratted on them. Or more specifically. Him.  
  
There was no hope for it. The Brotherhood was under attack, and as usual, it wasn't really their fault. "I think you should go get your boyfriend or something."  
  
"And miss all the fun?"  
  
"Didn't he say he wanted to help out around the house. Carpentering or something. Aren't you gonna show him the house."  
  
"Hmm. He and his brother know kung fu. They could help out. Great idea Pietro."  
  
He slowly got up.   
  
"Where's Summers and the elf?"  
  
"Busy."  
  
"I'm sure they can make time fer some old friends..."  
  
"I dunno. Painting and all takes up a lot of time and energy..."  
  
"Do I need to tear this place apart?"  
  
"Wait outside, you overgrown badger. You destroy our home and not even Victor Creed could save you from us. Don't worry. We've been expecting this." Lance had turned the sander off and was leaning, casual as death, on the hand rail of the porch. "Pietro. Get the others. Make sure she stays out of it." Lance's tone made it clear who 'she' was.  
  
"You will give me the keys to your jeep or you will suffer pain beyond pain- Thanks. You relly want me gone don't you." Lance had handed her the keys before she had even said the word. "Very well. I shall depart now... You aren't even going to threaten my life if I destroy it?"  
  
"Out, Wanda. Go on a date with what's his name."  
  
"Kaysin, and I will thank you. Give me-"  
  
"Here's twenty bucks. Go." Stunned, Wanda took the money. With a disdainful 'hmmph' she jumped in the jeep and nearly ran over half the people standing in the yard.  
  
"I said outside, big guy. I meant it."  
  
Logan gave Lance a look that clearly said what Lance could do with his orders, but he went anyway. There was more room to fight, and that was exactly what Logan had come for. They had to have found some sneaky, Brotherhood way of brainwashing the X-Men. He'd beat it out of them. Then he'd drag Summers back to the Institute and give him a few hard hours in the Danger Room just for good measure.  
  
A few seconds later, the music stopped (along with that awful howling) and Pietro came out of the house, closely followed by Todd, Fred and Kurt.  
  
"Where's Cyclops?"  
  
"Busy. He'll be down soon. Not that I have any intention of letting this last that long."  
  
"Fine, we'll start the party without 'em." There was a distinctive 'snikt' as Wolverine's infamous claws announced their enterance into the arguement. The X-Men arranged themselves slightly behind him, all but Rogue who was a few feet to his right, but definitely not letting him get first blood. Facing them were the Brotherhood, never a force nearly as formidable, but always willing to fight. Lance stood as their leader, though he could hardly believe Pietro would stand behind him. There was a dangerous sounding 'swish-crak' as Kurt's tail swung around and then snapped back- almost like a whip. The Brotherhood was gonna get creamed unless Scott showed up with a miracle. The little voice in the back of Lance's mind that was tired of always losing cursed him out for sending Wanda away. Reluctantly, Lance mentally surveyed his followers. Kurt, who with his tail and agility could take out at least a few X-Men. Pietro's speed could catch them unaware, but once they got organized, he would definitely be stopped. Freddy was much too slow. The only way he'd take anyone out would be to trip and fall on them, or maybe if they got cocky and tried to stand up to him... Todd was a wimp, born and bred, but as long as Kurt was fighting, he would too. When Todd got into it, he was a force to be reckoned with. Lance himself was limited as far as hand to hand combat, unlike the X-Men. He could hit a few of them, but with only as much muscle as he could put behind that one fist. After he used his power, devastating as it was, he'd be useless. Scott was the only fighter worth a damn among the Brotherhood, and he was somewhere else. Trust Summers to disappear when you need him...  
  
"Never mind that, yo. We got 'em. We're on home turf. They don't know where the soft spots in the yard are." Todd was softly encouraging them, knowing that the X-Men could practically taste fear and that once they did, their hunger grew insanely out of proportion. And they called themselves the good guys.  
  
"If we avoid Logan, we can take out the rest before we get too tired. Then we can all gang up on him." Kurt whispered to the Brotherhood, taking care to cover his mouth. Rumor had it that Logan could read lips.  
  
"What's he thinking anyway? Coming here and starting a fight with all that backup... Hardly fair."  
  
"Tag alongs. I bet. Half of them are just itching for a fight so they invited themselves along. Once the first few fall, the others'll run. The newer X-Men lack the loyalty and honor of the old." Kurt sounded bitter.  
  
"Them's fightin' words coming from you of all people." Todd taunted.  
  
"Yeah, it is a bit hypocritical." Freddy said loudly. Whether or not Logan and the X-Men heard the conversation was a moot point. They did hear Freddy, and the majority of them took it that he was talking about them.  
  
Lance blinked hard. "When did you learn that word?"  
  
"You said that to Pietro when he said-"  
  
"Yeah, yeah. I remember." Lance said quickly. It wouldn't do to have a fight amongst themselves. "This is gonna hurt."  
  
"Damn straight." Logan said as he stalked forward. "It's gonna hurt a lot."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N  
  
Everyone remembers that phase, right... I mean, dude, there was that one minute when the boybands were practically gods... until all they grew up and started making really stupid songs on their own. Bah and a feh pie to that.  
  
Is it just me, or is Freddy learning... whoa... I really need to tone the sugar down...  
  
Just out of curiosity, has anyone seen the movie 'Batman and Robin,' is it just me or is Bruce Wayne's girlfriend the same person who played in Daredevil? Isn't that a violation of comic book wars, to work for DC and then switch to Marvel when the going gets good? 


	7. Confrontation

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 7- Confrontation  
  
Scott was just coming down the stairs with a bucket of paint. He had just finished the borders in the attic. His one goal at this point was to tell Pietro he was done and then to take a shower. As with the X-Men, the Brotherhood never made things that simple. Scott was fondly thinking that more than a score of mutants at the Institute simply couldn't match the madness of the Brotherhood when it occured to him that Kurt and Todd had stopped singing and not even Lance's sander could be heard. "Oh boy..." Scott raced down the stairs, smoothly depositing the bucket with the dozens of others in the hall without breaking stride. The door was hanging open and the TV was still on. Scott's pace slowed as he grabbed the steel baseball bat that Todd kept in his room and cautiously headed for the door. He had no intention of using it, but one of the guys might need it. Vaguely, Scott realized that Lance was the only one with an offensive power, though Todd's... well, BO could count as one on it's own. Reminding himself to focus, Scott threw himself through the door and raised a hand to his visor.  
  
"Summers, you're next. Just stay outta this." He heard Logan growl at him. They were all there, well almost. The Professor and Ororo were absent, and Scott already knew that Hank was on a four day feild trip with one of his classes. Otherwise, yeah, the X-Men stood at the Brotherhood's doorstep, decked in full battle gear. Scott gulped and found himself missing his old uniform. The shock absorbant one. With the fire- and water-proof fibers. And the armor-like shell. But, being the former leader and quite possibly, the only sane, rational person present, Scott pushed all that aside.  
  
"Mr. Logan... what's going on?" He asked, with the practiced air of one who knew precisely what was going on.  
  
"Don't go all Charlie on me, Summers. You know what this is about and don't get in my way." The last words were pronounced carefully and thrown as daggers. Scott decided that he didn't need his old uniform, especially if that was the best Logan could do. So he smiled.  
  
Logan was a bit surprised by that. No one mocked Wolverine. He had been determined to hold his punches with Summers, but then and there decided not to. It wouldn't do to have people think he could be toyed with. Scott seemed to understand, but in a wild move, threw it to the wind.  
  
Dragging a hand through his lightly splattered hair, Scott strode to his comrades and sank into attack-mode.  
  
The only problem was, he was standing behind Lance- not Logan.  
  
"Big mistake, bub." Logan whispered and the X-Men around him shifted to the side a little. Except for Rogue who was quite menacing in her silent, 'oh yeah, you know what's coming next' way.  
  
"You always say that. Why does no one ever truly repent?" Scott asked as he tossed the bat to Toad. "Shut up and make a move, either attack or get off our property." Emphasis on the 'our,' keep a straight face, try not to quiver in fear. Good boy, Scott.  
  
"You know what. You're right, kid. I'll make a move. Towards your face!!"  
  
"Hey, can we avoid a confrontation here?" Lance asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.  
  
Logan had taken three steps towards the Brotherhood when Lance said this, and yes, everything stopped. Logan even dropped his extended arm and a confused look flitted across everyone's face.  
  
"It's just that, we worked hard to clean up the furniture," Lance waved at the chairs, tables and bureaus scattered across the lawn on blue tarps. "And I know how much damage our fights cause. So could we not do this... or take it someplace else if it's unavoidable?"  
  
"..."  
  
"Is he askin' us t' leave?" Logan asked.  
  
"Hey, a costume party! Wanda, why didn't you say so? I have a magnificent suit of armor at home that would have been great. Is this your big surprise?" A cheerful voice rang across the yard. Of course it was obvious that this was anything but a costume party, but nice people see things that normal people don't.  
  
"Actually, I think this is what happens when one's little brother convinces the favorite mutant of his enemy faction to leave home and move in with him."  
  
"Incredible. This guy must be made of muscle. The costume shows them perfectly." Logan felt a pair of eyes on him and turned, baffled.  
  
"Oh great." He muttered. Wanda Maximoff. While she wasn't on the top of his 'Things That Make Me Turn Yellow' list, she was up there with curfew-breakers on the 'Things That Really Annoy Me' list. And those hex bolts did hurt a little.  
  
Logan noted the two guys next. One looked like Magneto, only about 40 years younger and dressed like that Alvers punk. The other had black hair with metallic blue, red and silver streaks randomly dyed in it. For some reason, he drew all the attention away from Wanda.  
  
"Who are they?"  
  
"Allow me to introduce my boyfriend and his brother. This is Kaysin," Wanda smiled adoringly at the dark haired kid, "and Jaysin. Of no relation to my brother and me, thank goodness. Guys, these are the Brotherhood's greatest enemies. The X-Men." She shot a glare at them and her voice dripped venom at their name.  
  
"Wow. So is this like a gang fight or something? I thought it was just a teen thing... or does he use steroids? They're not good for you, ya'know..." The kid walked through the X-Men and they parted like the Red Sea... they could sense something out of place and turned to Logan for assurance.  
  
"Do I know you, kid?"  
  
"Maybe, maybe not. I can't tell what you're thinking and I can't really see your face. You remind me of one of my cousins though. He was okay or at least to people he liked. Oooh. This must be Pietro... You're right Wanda, you can't miss him in a crowd. Nice hair. How do you get it to stay?"  
  
Despite themselves, the mutants felt the tension dissolve under the carefully randomized ministrations of Kaysin. Finally, Logan shook his head. "Whatever. I can't stay mad at you two. Why the Hell didn't you just say you were tryin' out the Brotherhood?"  
  
"Because we knew what you would do." Scott answered with his usual air of control. Most of the mutants had drifted away, with the obvious exception. Jean, Evan, Rogue and Logan were all that remained.   
  
Logan grunted. "Why do you think. You never even gave us a hint. Huh?" Logan's tone changed as Rogue stormed past him.  
  
"Just what do you mean runnin' off lahk that? Ah was worried t' death! And what if you'd died runnin' around, playin' like you were with the Brotha'hood? What if we'd a hurt you?"  
  
"I'm not a baby! I can take care of myself."  
  
"Okay, allowin' fer that, WHAT IS THIS ABOUT YOU AN' PIETRO BEING CLOSET PERVS?!!!"  
  
"We are not!!"  
  
"THEN WHY DID KITTY SAY YA'LL WERE? YOU THINK SHE'D LIE ABOUT SOMETHIN' LAHK THAT? WHAT KINDA PEOPLE DO YOU TAKE US FOR? IT AIN'T ENOUGH BEING A MUTANT WITHOUT BEING... BEING... YOU KNOW WHAT?!!!"  
  
"What's wrong with-"  
  
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? WHAT'S WRONG? HOW 'BOUT SNEAKIN' OUT NEARLY EVERY DANG NIGHT FER A YEAR TO SLEEP WITH YER BEST FRIEND'S MALE ENEMY? I COULD ALMOST FORGIVE THE FACT THAT IT'S ANOTHER GUY, BUT OF ALL THE PEOPLE!!!! Why couldn't you at least have picked someone... you know... well... more lahk Scott." She said, for lack of a better role model. He was, after all, only there to help the Brotherhood straighten up their act.  
  
"Because all the guys like Scott have beautiful women attached to their names, well except Scott, but he has a crush on someone else now, and things would get complicated." Rogue blinked and Scott changed colors. "He's like a brother to me. That's why." Kurt finished, hoping Rogue would accept it and stop ranting.  
  
"And what about yer sister? You just leave me all alone at that Institute with all those stuffed shirts and don't even say g'bye? For a hoodlum? Your best friend's enemy?"  
  
"Well... you rememeber all that mess about that diary a while back..."  
  
"When you almost got caught breakin' in the Brotherhood Mansion..."  
  
"He did?" Lance looked surprised.  
  
"Well. I went back."  
  
"..."  
  
"And then I got caught." There was that moment of silence that occurs in a classroom right after a teacher explains the answer to a difficult math problem.   
  
"Pietro." Lance was mad.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"We need to have a talk about you and strangers who walk into our house."  
  
"He wasn't a stranger."  
  
"Pietro." Make that pissed off.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Is that when all this started?" Rogue asked while Lance proceeded to strangle Pietro.  
  
"No. That's when I decided that Evan's enemies don't have to be my enemies. It wasn't 'til after all that mess with Phoenix that we got serious about it."  
  
"Kurt."  
  
"Rogue." he said, wincing slightly in preparation. She didn't fail him.  
  
"THAT WAS OVA' TWO DAMN YEARS AGO, YOU ONLY TOLD KITTY ONE!! HOW COULD YOU DO SOMETHIN' LAHK THIS TO US? AH THOUGHT BEING FAMILY MEANT YOU TALKED TO ONE ANOTHA'!! TWO YEARS??!"  
  
"Rogue, I can explain, see-"  
  
"AH DON'T THINK I WANT YA' T' EXPLAIN. AH THINK AH HEARD ENOUGH!!" Rogue picked up a dismantled drawer and thwaked Kurt soundly on the head for his betrayal before judging him thoroughly punished and moving on to the next person.  
  
"Ah, Rogue." Scott stammered, yes, he stammered and even backed away a little.  
  
"Ah'm warning you Mista' Summers. You better keep an eye on mah brotha' or you'll get even worse, ya' hear?"  
  
"Of course, Rogue." He smiled weakly.  
  
"And Scott."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"If I found out you came here for some twisted reason instead of t' help the Brotherhood, your head is mine."  
  
"But- er. Nothing." He said as she turned to face him.  
  
"What were you gonna say?"  
  
"I was under the impression that he left because he was getting bored with the X-Men." Wanda put in helpfully, or not.  
  
"Bored?" Rogue echoed.  
  
"No! No, it's just. It was getting too crowded and... well, I felt like letting someone else be the boss for a while."  
  
"Too crowded...letting someone else be boss... Oh. OH.... I get it. This is just a hiatus 'til things calm down. That ah can understand. Ah imagine it's hard keeping every one in line and all. So, you keep the Brotha'hood outta trouble. Ah'm holdin' you personally responsible." She ended darkly.  
  
"Ah, glad I... have your trust." Scott made a noncommitted sound to acknowledge how closely he had missed getting thwaked. Then there was Jean to face...  
  
A/N  
  
Yep, I'm sure you hate me now. You were so looking forward to that fight scene and then, whooosh. I denied you. I am a cruel master aren't I... (I was trying to find a way that the Brotherhood could win by a fluke, but I decided that as long as Wolverine was there, it would take a giant orca to provide a fluke big enough to save them... yes, that was a joke, believe it or not, and I made it up myself.)  
  
Anyhow. I really like the next scene... almost as I like the upcoming "Calling all Mutants" chapter. Yeah, it's coming up. That's a funny one, even my funny bone agreed, and you know how funny bones are...  
  
Power to the Corny Jokers. Yo.  
  
BTW: I grew up in the south, so I know what southerners say when they find out someone they know is gay. I dolled it up for you twelve year olds who know you shouldn't be reading this kind of story but think you're smart and read it anyway. We do that kinda stuff in the south too... 


	8. Revelation

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 8- Revelation  
  
"I dumped Duncan. He was pressuring me too much." She said softly, searching his face for something.  
  
"Well, he's Duncan after all. You better hurry or you'll miss your ride." Scott said, amazed to admit that he honestly didn't care about Jean or Duncan.  
  
"Scott, if somewhere in all this is a cry to me of-"  
  
"Jean. You're reading too far into it. I'm over it, really. I've got another girl on my mind."  
  
"O- oh." Jean said, a bit taken aback.  
  
Scott smiled. "Yeah. Kitty met her. She's a stripper we picked up at the mall. Nice if you handle her right." Behind him, Lance and Todd started coughing while Pietro and Kurt just dropped to the ground laughing.  
  
"She's real handy around the house too." Freddy added, innocent as ever. "You shoulda been here when Scott first turned her on-"  
  
"I think they're waiting on you, Jean. Bye." Scott scuffed the dirt with his shoes, determined not to laugh until the last of the X-Men were gone.  
  
Evan. Poor Evan... he just looked at Kurt as though he would cry and turned away. That took the mirth out of everyone, even Pietro who usually took great glee from Evan's sadness. Well, until SOMEONE who they all had forgotten about exclaimed from the house...  
  
"Wow! A Decker! Man, you must get excellent rotation from those, and those pumps, whew, I'm hot to try 'er already! May I?" There was a murmur that couldn't quite be heard from outside before the voice started again. "Hey Scott! Is it okay if I try her on? I promise to use the plastic!"  
  
The tires on the car squealed as Logan sped away with the last of the X-Men.  
  
Finally.  
  
Jean could feel them laughing all the way from the Institute. Boy, did she cry.  
  
"Promise to use the plastic? You guys are terrible."  
  
"Aw, Wanda. We were just... you know. Being guys."  
  
Pietro snorted at that. Wanda would have killed anyone else who said something like that, but dear little Kaysin emerged unscathed. It was getting sickening to be in the same room as the two of them.  
  
"That guy is a bad influence on your sister, 'Tro." Todd said as he made a face at the door. They were in the kitchen and the only thing separating them from the two lovesick teens was a door.  
  
"I'll say. Can you believe this? Making me cook like I'm a... a..."  
  
"Cook?"  
  
"Yes. What does it look like I'm doing?"  
  
"No I mean, like you're a cook. But I mean, she did say you took classes and all."  
  
"Back then I wanted to be a chef. That was a long time ago. I hate cooking now."  
  
"Yeah, well. I like cooking. The cook gets to taste everything first. As in, all the best cookies somehow never make it far from the oven. Hint hint."  
  
"Well. That is a major plus."  
  
"And you get to experiment and recruit tastetesters if you're afraid of what you made."  
  
"Kurt and Freddy."  
  
"Yep. And not only that," Todd looked at Pietro from the corner of his eye and hid a smug grin. "They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach..."  
  
"... You may have a point there..."  
  
"Well, gotta go. Summer reading and all. You know." Todd hopped out of the kitchen, pausing in the TV room to tell Wanda that, yes, he had convinced Pietro to cook dinner and no, he wasn't going to poison them all. Then he hopped into the living room to gather the rest of Pietro's CDs and return them to his room. He was surpised to see Scott there tapping keys on the dusty old piano.  
  
"Yo." He said brightly, though not as much so as Kaysin. "You play piano?"  
  
Scott looked up, a bit off guard. "Actually, I used to play the clarinet. I was just thinking about pianos, that's all."  
  
"I hate the piano. Too many afternoons of being forced to practice. You think about pianos often?"  
  
"No. I was just wondering who here would play a piano. None of you seem to be piano players."  
  
"You'd be surprised. None of us looks much like what we really are. Geniuses, that is." Todd preened as much a a frog-like person could (seeing as they have no feathers...)   
  
"Geniuses, huh... so why are you all in substandard classes?"  
  
"Pietro's not. And bein' a genius is more about how fast and well you pick up on things, rather than how well you follow rules and take tests. Did you know that Freddy plays the flute? He learned by watching all these dumb little TV shows with the orchestras. Then he taught Lance and Lance taught Pietro and Pietro taught me. Lance started with the violin. Can you imagine? He's not really so rough looking when he wants to be, either. I've seen him dress up to play at some old lady's birthday. She had cancer or something."  
  
"I've noticed that. You seem to be just like that, why do you purposefully-"  
  
"Don't you get it? We're the Brotherhood. We can't go around lookin' like respectable people. Then, when we wanted to do some undercover work, you'd know exactly who we were." When Scott merely looked at him as he was insane, Todd sighed and shook his head. "Look, we just... got picked up by the wrong people. We coulda' been X-Men. You have nothing we don't. We've been like what you see for so long that after a while we start believing all those people who say we're worthless and stuff. So when Magneto approached us, what could we say? Lookin' at you X-Men from a distance, all high and mighty... we stereotyped you as rich jerks from the beginning. Even though we looked like troublemakers, we were really just as much a bunch of do-gooders as you, we just didn't flaunt it. So when we finally figured out what Magneto was all about, we couldn't go anywhere else and we had been fighting you for so long... so we bullied people when Mystique and Magneto were around and then we went out at night and did little things to make up for it. We couldn't have people recognize us, so we acted like responsible and respectable people when we went out. Our looks are designed to make people dislike us so they don't realize the similarities between the Brotherhood of Mutants and the Brotherhood Volunteer group."  
  
"Are you serious? That volunteer group was started by you guys?"  
  
"Yeah. Then other people just started using our name."  
  
"I don't believe it. Those guys didn't look like you at all."  
  
"That's the point." Todd said, irritated that he had just explained everything to Scott and he still didn't get it.  
  
"I mean... Even the hair color..."  
  
"You know those hair sprays that last only until you wash 'em out?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So don't be stupid."  
  
"Hmm." Scott turned back to the piano and began pressing keys again. Todd was just on his way out when Lance came moping in.  
  
"Kitty dumped you again?" Todd asked.  
  
"Yeah. Doesn't want to be attached to a guy who has such bad taste in friends. Shoulda stuck up for Jean earlier. Jerk for defending jerks... that kinda stuff."  
  
"Maybe Kitty'll join the Brotherhood. Then you won't have to worry about all that anymore."  
  
"You forget. Kurt's here. That ain't gonna work, 'cause I know she still has a crush on him."  
  
"You need to handle that. Maybe if you dump her, she'll stop making you look like an idiot."  
  
"I doubt it. Why are you staring at me like that? Got a eye problem?"  
  
Scott pressed another key on the piano and tried to imagine Lance playing the flute or violin. He wasn't getting far. "We only have two more floors to go. What will we do once we're done?"  
  
"Find something else to do." Lance answered nastily. How could Summers worry about that now of all times?  
  
"Do you play guitar?"  
  
"What?" Lance looked at Scott as if he had lost a few good marbles.  
  
"I just had an idea."  
  
A/N  
  
Yep. It's obvious what the idea is, but just to be spiteful I won't say it, so nyah. This chapter has a purpose. It'll take a while to actuate that purpose, but it's lurking in the back of my Skittles clouded mind. I'm gonna gain a hundred pounds before the summer is over, just wait. All that hard work I went through during the school year so I'd be fit for summer... Screw it. Who cares about that anyway? 


	9. Ideas

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 9- Ideas  
  
P.S.  
  
I disclaim.  
  
"Sounds like fun, but there's a problem." Kurt said as he passed a bowl of mashed potatoes to Kaysin, who thanked him profusely. Todd was rather amused to note that between the two of them, about three boxes of instant mashed potatoes were gone. "We don't have any of the equipment and even if we did, we don't know how to use it."  
  
"Oh that's no problem. Our uncle owns a string of pawn shops and they always have equipment. We can pay him back later. Jay and I can teach you guys all you need to know, if you can use the instuments."  
  
There was silence as the Brotherhood (and former X-Men) looked at each other. With a delicate cough, Pietro broached the subject.  
  
"Who the Hell said you were were getting involed in this?"  
  
"Amen to that. Last time we borrowed something from Uncle Arthur, he charged us the same as everyone else and added a late fee if we paid a day late. Or at least he did before your damn cat broke it." Jaysin added.  
  
"Well, Janet isn't here and I have a good feeling about this. Even with his rather outrageous prices, we could make a good profit."  
  
"Hey, it's a big investment, in time and money. We don't even know if we'll be any good. Why don't we start something we know we're good at first. Build up funds and whatnot. We're not doing that well since we got done renovating." Scott said. "Good meatloaf, Todd. Did Pietro teach you how to make this one?"  
  
"Nah. I managed on my own. It's not that hard if you just follow the directions. Like science."  
  
"So what will we do? We finally finished the house and still haven't figured out what to do with ourselves. School starts in a month, too."  
  
"Hang on, wasn't this your idea, Scott?" Kaysin asked, suspicious.  
  
"Yeah, but I was thinking. Look at this place. How many people have commented on how nice the yard looks, or congratulated us on fixing the place up? And we do have all that other equipment left over from the renovation. Why don't we fix other people's houses? We can make some money, especially if we charge them for extra materials as well as our work... I'm sure there are lots of jobs around here. We could garden too. Landscaping, renovation and interior decorating."  
  
There was silence as everyone digested that (and their food : ).  
  
"That's a good idea. You could really rake up." Jaysin said, impressed by the idea. "It's kind of hot, though. You sure you want to work in this heat?"  
  
"Never stopped us before." Kurt was really getting into it.  
  
"We can't use our powers to help out." Lance reminded them.  
  
"We didn't use them that much anyway. So of course we should hold an open house to show off what we can do. And we'll have to spread the word that we're for hire. Mrs. French asked me if I could help her decorate her neice's room. The open house could get us a lot of customers."  
  
"It could also get us a lot of missing stuff."  
  
"So we lock up the stuff we don't want them to find. Everyone's been asking who fixed up our house. They've only seen the outside. C'mon Lance. Please, please?" Pietro kicked Kurt under the table. With a small jump, Kurt turned his attention from his fifth helping and nodded.  
  
"Please, pretty please?" he asked, not really knowing what he was pleading for, but knowing that he better help Pietro out somehow.  
  
"We'd have to dress up and entertain all those people..."  
  
"I'll handle it." Pietro said.  
  
"Yeah, he's good with this kind of thing. We could print out some flyers or something and spread them out to select people. People we think might actually hire you guys." Jaysin said helpfully. Since it was Jaysin suggesting it and not Kaysin, Lance finally broke down.  
  
"Fine, I guess. When?"  
  
"July 12th." Pietro answered, quickly even for his standards.  
  
"What time?"  
  
"Three to six."  
  
"I suppose you already figured out an itinerary." Lance said, knowing damn well that, yes, Pietro and Scott planned this and of course they had it all planned out. A quick glance at Scott showed his blank "I have absolutely nothing to do with this" face. "Scott. We need to discuss your going behind my back and inciting Pietro to do stuff like this."  
  
"Me?" It was the "Oh, I'm sure I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about" face. They were all too damn perfect to be honest.  
  
"You."  
  
Scott made a slight noncommitted noise. Coming from anyone else, it would have been believable, but this was Scott for crying out loud.  
  
"I hate it when you guys set me up like this."  
  
"It's the only way you let us do anything different like letting people in our house." Freddy said, calmly returning the gravy ladle back to the bowl.  
  
"What happens when the X-Freaks show up?"  
  
"Will they?"  
  
"Try stopping them."  
  
"So you invite the Professor and Ms. Munroe. The X-Men won't start trouble if they're here."  
  
Good point, Lance realized.  
  
"We also want to show them that we're not making trouble so they'll make a bit more effort to not let the X-Men attack us. They might also want to talk to Scott and Kurt to see how things are going."  
  
"I never thought of it that way, Freddy. Yeah, I guess we should invite the teachers at the Institute. Yes, Todd. Logan, too." Scott scowled. In the back of his mind, he wondered if wolverines and toads were naturally so averse to each other's company.  
  
"Pietro..." Lance asked wearily.  
  
"Already got it. I have a list of people we absolutely have to invite. The principal is on the list, too, so we have to be careful what we say when he gets here."  
  
"Got it." Freddy said. He probably wasn't going to say much anyway.  
  
"Hang on. The principal? Why?"  
  
"Because as long as we're staying out of trouble, we may as well let people know. Half of them are convinced that all we need is something to do and we'll stay on the right track. I'm sure we'll stay busy, and it makes us look responsible."  
  
"What he means is, if you include the principal and things go really well, he may not be so strict with you once school starts again since he thinks you're at least trying." Jaysin said with a grin.  
  
"Ah. That I understand." Todd nodded. "So it's decided? We have a little more than a week to get alot of stuff done."  
  
"Yep. I've got all the details in my room." Pietro smiled triumphantly and winked at Scott, who plastered his "I have no idea why he just winked at me because I didn't do anything" face on.  
  
"I'm sure you do." Lance said darkly, wondering if, somewhere in the bowels of his room, Pietro had the details of how to get a rock band off the ground as well. That had been Scott's idea, too... 


	10. Discovery

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 10- Discovery  
  
I disclaim.  
  
Pietro was on a roll. By July 4th, Pietro had everything planned to perfection. The invitations were being printed and the last details for the house were finished up. The food would be prepared the day before and the day of, a menu had been drawn up and the cooks (Jay, Pietro, Freddy and Todd) were practising their dishes and, to avoid making everyone sick to death of them, giving the finished products to taste testers at several shelters in the city. Pietro really did have everything planned.  
  
So, the Brotherhood found themselves a week from the Open House with nothing to do. Well, almost nothing to do.  
  
"While we wait, we could open up that door in the basement." Todd suggested.  
  
"And have more stuff to clean up?" Lance yawned.  
  
"Yeah, I guess."  
  
"I'll get the crowbar. I don't think the doorknob works on it." Lance stretched and headed out the door while Todd rolled off the couch and dragged himself to hopping position.  
  
"I'll get the others." He muttered to the TV. He imagined it looked at him funny, with it's blank grey screen. "Screw you too."  
  
Within five minutes everyone was in the basement in front of the door, which was a lighter brown than the soil coloured walls. Lance stood at the front with the crowbar and had already wedged it between the door and doorframe. Pietro stood slightly behind him with a handkerchief over his mouth and nose and goggles over his eyes. To protect himself from the dirt and bugs, he claimed when Scott asked him...  
  
"Alright, go for it." Scott said, holding half-a-dozen heavy duty flashlights. With a grunt, Lance pushed on the crowbar. Nothing happened. He finally backed away, rubbing the imprint of the crowbar from his hands.  
  
"Maybe it's all the dirt and stuff caked in the sides of the door." Wanda said in a thoughtful voice. The guys looked.  
  
"Yeah. That might be it." Lance said as he wrestled the crowbar from the niche and used it to scrape years of grime and dirt from the top, bottom and sides of the door. He then put it back and tried again.  
  
"Ya' wanna lend a hand Summers?" He growled through clenched teeth. The door wasn't moving and he was putting all his wieght into it. After he and Scott spent about five mintues heaving, they gave up.  
  
"Freddy, you do it."  
  
Fred wrapped one massive hand around the crowbar and pushed. Nothing happened. Soon Freddy was sweating and swearing as he slowly but surely bent the crowbar out of shape. The door didn't budge.  
  
"Okay. So maybe it's a fake door." Wanda shrugged.  
  
"There's an empty space behind it, you can hear when you tap the walls." Kurt demonstrated. "Besides, the doorknob turns, although not all the way... If it was fake-"  
  
"Why don't we take the doorknob off. The we can see into the room and have Kurt teleport in. It may be locked from the inside or something." Todd interupted Kurt and tossed a screwdriver to Lance.  
  
"But, if it's locked from the inside then someone must have been in there to lock it. How could they have gotten out?"   
  
"Aw, don't worry, fuzzy. They'll be nothing but a skeleton by now. You won't have to smell them."  
  
"Kurt, it could just be that whoever it was was a mutant who didn't need doors, but didn't want anyone to get in. Or it may just be full of junk that slid down and blocked the door during one of Bayvilles many earthquakes..." Scott reassured Kurt. "In that case, I'll just have to blow the whole door to smithereens."  
  
Kurt thought for a moment on how long he had spent painting the beetles and earthworms and pipes that adorned the door and decided that Scott was out of his mind.  
  
"Dammit." Lance swore. He tossed the screwdriver back to Todd, who gave him a hammer. "Thanks." With one swing, Lance took the whole doorknob off and knocked the other end out. "Flashlight..." Scott handed one to him with a shake of his head. "Whoa. It's like a computer room minus the computers." He handed the light to Kurt and stepped to the side.  
  
"Oh, well, that's not so bad." He said and teleported in.  
  
"So, is it locked or something?"  
  
"No. It opens in. Hang on." A second later, Kurt's fingers slipped the the hole in the door and he began tugging at the door.  
  
"C'mon, push." Lance demanded as he put his shoulder to the door. It took Scott, Lance, Kurt and Fred almost fifteen minutes to get that door open, and once the got it, they saw why.  
  
"Bloody hell. That door must be at least five inches thick." Todd swore as they looked at it. He knocked on the side and they all heard a loud metallic clanging.  
  
"There must be a space in the door so whoever is outside can get the person inside to open up." Scott said as he stared at all the locks on the inside of the room. Thankfully, none of them had been locked. It would have taken no less than Scott's optic blasts to melt them. "Are you okay, Pietro?"  
  
"I just had a revelation." he said more quickly than usual. "Those grilles by the lightswitches in all the rooms... they're really speakers. This is the control room. Since it's all down here like this, then... This building wasn't built as a house. A business would have this place above ground, near the entrance. It's sound-proofed, but they left a way for someone on the outside to signal the person inside... Guys, this a secret room, which means there may be more..."  
  
"Pietro. I hereby charge you with the task of restoring this room..." At Pietro's look, Lance thought fast of a way to get Pietro to do all the hard work. "It may hold a key to accessing the other hidden rooms."  
  
"You're right! Of course..." Pietro removed the handkerchief from his face and swiped at one of the walls. A thick layer of dust came off to reveal a screen.   
  
"Whoa. Correction." Lance said as he stepped closer to the screen. "The computers are still here."  
  
"Do you realize how long this place has been like this? Look, Mystique didn't know about it, or it wouldn't be like this. She's only been gone a few months and this is way too much dust for that amount of time. So that means that it's been this way since before the Brotherhood arrived here. That was... almost three years ago!" Pietro calculated. "They only just started selling computers like this, and just the monitors cost thousands of dollars."  
  
"So what does the actual computer look like, I wonder... There's about..." Todd counted the number of dusty screens. "Twenty four screens and eight desktop computers. Are they networked?"  
  
Lance and Scott hung back with Freddy by the door. As Todd and Pietro got more and more into the conversation, Lance and Scott got more and more confused.   
  
"Y'know, I heard Evan say that word once." Kurt muttered, having far more difficulty understanding computer jargon than he ever had learning English.  
  
"Yeah, well, we'll just let you two have at it." Scott said. "If you need anything, just figure out how to work the intercom and we'll come running."  
  
Neither of them heard. Without bothering to repeat it, the non-computer geeks left, sharing a look with each other. If Pietro and Todd could get the room in working condition, they'd get no peace from the little grilles built into the walls of every room. On the other hand, what if Pietro was right... 


	11. Calling All Mutants

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 11- Calling all Mutants  
  
Still disclaiming...  
  
[Fzzzzzzz. Click. Calling all mutants, calling all mutants... please report to the control room, I repeat, please report to the control room.]  
  
Lance snorted and rolled over. "Huh, whuzzuh fud?" He blearily stared at his pillow for all of three micromilliseconds before he fell back asleep.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
[Fzzzzzzz. Click. Calling all mutants, calling all mutants... please report to the control room, I repeat, please report to the control room.]  
  
Scott shot up in bed, going from a deep sleep to having each and every synapse firing at once. He had been having a dream where he and the Brotherhood were on a mission and suddenly a giant tin man jumped out of nowhere and attacked them...  
  
"Man, what did I eat last night?" He muttered to himself, trying to shake the memories of that crazy dream. He lay back in bed and wondered why he woke up, but signed it off to the dream and fell back into blissful darkness.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
[Fzzzzzzz. Click. Calling all mutants, calling all mutants... please report to the control room, I repeat, please report to the control room.]  
  
Kurt was so tangled up in the bedspreads of Pietro's bed that he didn't even hear, much less wake up.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"I don't get it, where are they?" Pietro was running around in circles, almost bursting at the seams from excitement. When he saw the door slowly swing open, he actually jumped for joy. "Didja' hear, didja hear? Oh, hi Freddy. Didja? Didja?"  
  
"Uh. Yeah." Freddy said, Todd noticed he looked a bit... flushed.  
  
"You okay, big guy?" Todd asked him as he indicated a barrel near the center of the room that made a perfect stool for the giant.  
  
"Well, I got up to get some food. And Wanda was leaving with that guy. Kaysin." Freddy blushed even more. "I, uh... don't think they'll be back til later today. Much later."  
  
"Oh....kay." Pietro said, slowly digesting what Freddy had said. "So I wasn't loud enough? Is that why no one else came when I called? I was getting worried."   
  
"No, Pietro I don't-" Todd began, but as is often the case with Pietro, was too late.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
[GET YOUR LAZY ASSES OUTTA BED AND COME TO THE CONTROL ROOM!!]  
  
This time, Lance shot out of bed and looked around frantically as a massive earthquake shook Bayville. "What the fuck? What. The. Fuck????"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Scott was up even faster. He ran out of his bedroom in only his boxers and fairly flew down the stairs to identify the trouble. On his way, he ditched his shades for his battle visor. He skidded to a stop as Kurt teleported into his arms and then disappeared again, only to rematerialize in the kitchen. Amid the BAMFing, smoke, sulfer, breaking glass, alarms and general madness, something occured to Scott.  
  
"DAMMIT, MAXIMOFF!! YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!!" he screamed at the innocently silent pad next to the lightswitch.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Do you think they heard?" Pietro asked at that exact same moment.  
  
Todd was sitting at the computer with several windows up. One was a live camera streamer that cycled through at least thirty different scenes every two seconds. Another was a game of Freecell. The last was a small pop-up window to inform User that seismic activity had been detected, Richter scale of 5.0, point of origin, negative 85 feet, Okay, Cancel or More Information.  
  
"Uh, yeah." Todd glanced at the camera cycler and saw Scott yelling at the speaker in his underwear, Kurt teleporting a million different places at once and Lance nearly falling down the stairs to find out what the hell was going on. "Yep. I think they'll be down in about thirty seconds, tops." Todd very discreetly hid underneath the metal desk that they had pushed against the wall and waited.  
  
Less than five seconds after he was hidden to his satisfaction, Scott made his presence known by bodily lifting Pietro and tossing across the room. Or maybe that was Lance, either way, they were both mad enough, and strong enough to manage it, no problem. Poor Kurt was still upstairs, teleporting in and out of every room and Todd suspected that he would keep doing just that until he either collapsed from exhaustion or managed to calm down.  
  
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SCREAMING AT US FROM THAT DAMNED BOX AT... TWO IN THE MORNING?!?!?!"  
  
"I- I just... I. you know.. testing." Pietro whimpered in the face of the two teens' wrath.  
  
It must have been Scott speaking, because suddenly the tempo dropped about a million decibels into that dangerous, 'oh, yeah, you screwed up now' voice. From his place under the desk, Todd couldn't hear what was said, but he got the point. Abusing the speakers was a crime punishable by torture. And then death if Scott and Lance were feeling charitable, which wasn't likely. Todd held his breath as he waited for Pietro to say something to make the situation even worse, but for once in his life, Pietro knew when to shut up. Todd breathed again as he felt the tension slowly leave the room, but before it had really worked it's way out...  
  
BAMF! AHHHHHH!!  
  
Suddenly Todd's perfect hiding place was hurled across the room and he rolled over, coughing up smoke and feverently cursing that damn X-Man for ruining his hiding place.  
  
"Ach mien Gott..." Kurt whispered as he clung to Freddy's leg with every ounce of strength that he and his tail could muster.  
  
"Dammit, Todd. Why didn't you stop him?" Scott growled, pissed as a tom cat who found anther alley cat walking his 'hood.  
  
"Let me first say that you've been around Lance for too long and it's starting to make you violent and irrational and then let me apologize for being so bold as to say so." Todd said in one breath. Scott seemed to understand what he was saying, or maybe not, but at least he lowered his fist and let go of Todd. As the terrified mutant scuttled to the other side of the room, Scott stood, clenching and unclenching his fists. "You try stopping Pietro when he gets his hands on a new gadget."  
  
"Take it apart. All of it. If he has such a hard time controlling himself," Scott paused to glare his hatred at Pietro, "Then we'll just have to eliminate the distraction."  
  
Lance scowled at Todd and Pietro before he left with Scott on his heels.  
  
"Nice going, 'Tro."  
  
Pietro's answer was a small frightened sound, like one a mouse would make after a hawk dropped from the sky to catch it, but suddenly changed direction, headed for bigger game.  
  
"You okay?" Freddy asked, gently patting the top of Kurt's head. When he frantically shook his head 'no', Freddy just nodded and pryed him off his leg. "It's okay, little buddy. They didn't mean anything by it. They were just scared."  
  
"You know what Freddy, I remember this one foster home I went to... they had this rottweiler, and I'll be a spotted poodle if they didn't say that exact same thing about that demon..." Todd smirked.  
  
"Yep.. Animals are usually more scared of you than you are of them." Freddy nodded again. "Nice job cleaning this place up, though. Just in time. The Open House is in two days. We'll probably need all of that cleaning the rest of the house up."  
  
"What?" Pietro demanded. "Everything's ready."  
  
"Not anymore. You know what happens when Lance gets scared." With the serenity of a Buddist priest, or maybe a hurricane that was secure in the knowledge that, yes, it was the baddest mamma-jamma on the block and, no, there was nothing the rest of the universe could do about it, Freddy swept from the room, leaving Kurt, Todd and a devastated Pietro reeling in his wake.  
  
Freddy smiled in the darkness, living in the Brotherhood Mansion was fun, and no amount of all-you-can-eat buffets at the Xavier Mansion could compare. 


	12. Intro to Garden Tools

"I Tried"  
  
FurorPaxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 12- Intro to Garden Tools  
  
You, know what, this is a fanfiction site, if lawyers don't get that it's based on stories by other people then let them try to sue me.  
  
Early Thursday morning, Scott Summers got the call that every father dreads. Not that he was a father or anything, or even considered a brother to the person involved, but it was a shock either way. Especially when you got down to the bare bones of it.  
  
"Okay, calm down. Take three deep breaths and count to ten... alright. Start at the beginning."  
  
The person on the other end took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay. We were just hanging out at the mall, right, and then she said, hey, let's go to your place, but you know how things are here and all, so, so I said, nah. To many people. So she said, okay, we can go to mine. Hers I mean."  
  
"Yeah, I'm with you so far."  
  
"So, we were talking and drinking lemonade, you know, safe stuff. But the next thing I know, she's all over me and... and... then I woke up back at my house and she's here and ohmygodwhathaveIdone?!!" The last part came out as an agonized wail and the practical part of Scott said, 'Duh, it's obvious what you did, the question is what are we gonna do now?' Of course, Scott didn't let that part of him come into contact with people, especially people who were basically nice.  
  
"I think you need to come over. Does anyone else know? God, what was she thinking? What did she put in your drink?"  
  
"You think she put something in my... Oh God help me!!"  
  
"Nothing that'll do any lasting damage, but... just get her dressed and get over here. I can't think on the telephone." Scott ran a hand through his hair.  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Stay calm. Find your happy place or something." Scott winced. THAT was REALLY what the kid needed to hear. He hung up and turned around to see Lance looking at him funny. "She got him."   
  
"She as in..."  
  
"We have to hurry up with this place. We have to devote as much time tomorrow as possible to cooking." Pietro said as he whizzed between the two of them.  
  
Scott turned away and Lance heard him muttering a serenity mantra, 'Three deep breaths, count to ten, still not sure? Try again.' Over and over.  
  
"Yo. That kinda stuff don't work here." Todd said helpfully as he hopped down the stairs. He had just raided Pietro's closet again and was happy knowing that when NightCrawler woke up, he'd have one hell of a surprise. "This is the Brotherhood. You get mad, you hit something. Preferrably not me."  
  
"Not mad, Todd. I'm not mad." Scott said in a tone that said otherwise, but Todd just shrugged and hopped about his own business. Scott placed a hand on the phone and waited for a second. Sure enough, it rang.  
  
"You will not come over. You will not interfere and most importantly, you will not tell Pietro."  
  
"Wanda. Get your ass over here now or I will tell everyone, even the X-Men, just what a twisted little-" In the distance Freddy bumped into something and knocked it over with a crash, effectively drowning out the colorful words that Scott used to tell Wanda about herself. Once he was done he slammed the phone down and headed for the door. "Lance. Keys." Without a word, Lance tossed the keys to Jeep to Scott, not bothering with the ususal threats and warnings about damaging his newly repaired Jeep. For one thing, Scott was just like him when it came to his car and Scott didn't look like he would have listened.  
  
Ten minutes later, Scott was pounding on the door of the Dantzlers. An unshaven man answered the door and stared at Scott for a moment.   
  
"My name is Scott Summers and I need to speak to your son, Kaysin."  
  
"Uh... yeah, yeah. Right." The man backed out of the doorway, self-conciously patting his beer belly. "I'll go get him." The man left Scott in a room full of curio cabinets and a sofa. Resisting the urge to pace, Scott stood and waited for Kaysin.  
  
Jacob Dantzler was not a jealous man. He wasn't normally concerned with anything outside what his close friends and family said, and even then he was careful about what he took to heart and what he discarded as trash. When he opened the door to see the man standing on his doorstep, the first thing he thought was, 'Damn, did I look that good when I was in college? What happened?' The man looked like some government person, with those red shades, perfect posture and clipped tones. He was pretty small, nothing special at first glance, tallish, brown hair, just an average Joe. But a second look showed that if the kid weighed 150, then was 149 pounds of muscle. Looking at this 20-odd year old, Jacob felt like he let his body go to waste.   
  
It took a minute for him to stop wishing he was still in his prime and register that the man, Sumpter?, had asked for Kaysin. "Uh... yeah, yeah. Right." Jacob muttered and led Mr. Sumpter to the room where his wife usually entertained her visitors. "I'll go get him." Jacob muttered again as he beat a hasty retreat from the room, though he felt like the man could see him anyway. What would he tell his government buddies when-  
  
"I thought you loved me." Jacob heard a girl say mournfully from Kaysin's room. "How could you do this to me?"  
  
"I do, Wanda, it's just... well. I'm not ready for this." Kaysin returned. He sounded like he had been crying, though that wasn't any surprise. Kaysin was just a big baby once you got rid of all the fake smiles and cheerfulness. "Wanda, c'mon, don't-" The door opened just as Jacob reached it. "Uh, Dad, um..."  
  
"You're in trouble now. There's some government guy here to see you. If he's come to cart you away, I had no idea what you were..." Jacob warned. "Why the hell you got yourself caught is anyone's idea."  
  
"I-" Kaysin looked from Jacob to Wanda and back again.   
  
"You will explain later. We have to leave now or Scott will come for us." the girl said, no longer mournful, but in command. She grabbed Kaysin's hand and headed down the hall.  
  
"Damn straight I'll come for you, Wanda. Pietro's gonna throw a fit when he finds out. You know how he is." The government guy had followed Jacob and was standing there, blocking the hall as if he was set there by God. Jacob thought about what he had said. 'So, Kaysin's got himself a girlfriend who's daddy is a bureaucrat, huh...' he thought to himself, secretly thrilled that Kaysin beat Jaysin at something other than making friends or baking. Or gardening... that was just... unmanly. Men didn't touch the garden except to whack a few weeds or cut the grass...  
  
"Get in the car, Wanda. Mr. Dantzler, I need to bring Kaysin with me as well. I'll drop him off when we're finished." With a nod to Jacob and a glare at the girl named Wanda, the agent (Jacob was sure he was at least FBI) stepped to the side so the two could exit.  
  
"Hey, Kay!" Jaysin called from his room before sticking his head out of the door. It took all of a moment to figure out what was going on. "Well, uh. If you see Lance, tell him I finished the project."  
  
Kaysin gave a miserable little 'hmmm' and put his head down. Pietro would probably kill him first.  
  
"Scott, it's about time you showed up." Pietro reajusted a picture on the wall before deciding it was fine and turning to see what the silence was about. Lance was standing in a corner and Freddy and Kurt were in the next room, playing the quiet game. Todd was lurking about somewhere but what really bothered him was the way Scott was looking at Wanda, who was looking at the wall. Kaysin was there, staring at the ground and trying to shrink into himself. "What's going on?"  
  
"One of Kaysin's garden tools attacked him." Lance said, barely hiding his glee. It was obvious who was gonna take the fall for this.  
  
"Garden tools? What does that have to do with us? Wanda, you didn't hex it or anything..."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Okay, what garden tool was it? You aren't hurt or anything, are you, Kay? Wanda gets stupid about hexing things sometimes." Pietro apologized with an extremely dangerous look at her.  
  
Kurt cleared his throat from just behind Lance. That explained the 'Quiet Game... "I, ah, don't think he means literally." Pietro met Kurt's eyes and, for a second, just stared blankly. Then, his eyes took on a very, very not safe glint that was usually associated only with Scott and Storm's powers.  
  
"Garden tool..." Pietro muttered as he redirected his attention to Wanda. Suddenly, the door seemed to interest her a lot more than the wall had a second before. "What. Did. You. Do?"  
  
Wanda sniffed, a last attempt to retain her dignity. "Only what people in love do." She answered as she readied a hex bolt.  
  
"You..." In the kitchen, Freddy knocked something over again. 


	13. Secondary Education

A/N This is not a funny chapter. It's setting up a deeper plot, so if you don't get something, please ask. I'm setting up the motivations for future chapters. And, yeah, things are getting a bit extreme. I'll try to tone it down, but I have this thing about drama/violence... Just gimme a flame if you think I'm getting out of my place.  
  
Also, sorry it took so long to update. Life happened.  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 13- Secondary Education  
  
(Refusing to claim or disclaim.)  
  
It occured to Scott that the Brotherhood was really just like, in the profound words of Shrek, an onion. The layers just kept coming off the longer he stayed with them. Scott had known that Pietro would throw a fit when he found out what Wanda had been up to, but he never suspected that Pietro would... well, to say the least, it was obvious who's son he was.  
  
Scott remembered when he had told the Professor that he was leaving the X-Men to join the Brotherhood. He took it well, all things considered. Professor X considered Scott as much of a son as Scott considered him a father, but that didn't mean that Scott's leaving home to move across town was any easier for him. The Professor had just warned Scott about possible secondary mutations among the Brotherhood and told him that if things got out of hand, he was always welcome back. He kept that look on his face that Scott duplicated so well, that 'It's no big deal since you'll come back anyway' look, even though they both knew it wasn't happening. Scott hadn't thought much about secondary mutations since then, it was never anything he had to worry about, but seeing Pietro get so angry...  
  
It didn't help that everything in the room suddenly decided to defy gravity. Four knives were spinning in a tight circle above the speed demon's head and Scott hoped that Pietro wasn't as mad as he seemed.  
  
"Pietro." Freddy said calmly from somewhere near the ceiling. "Be careful... you're messing up the house."  
  
"Yeah, maybe you should take this outside or something." Lance agreed.  
  
Scott looked at Pietro standing there, shaking with rage and wondered how they could be so calm. Scott fought his way to a doorpost and braced himself in the doorway. He set himself in a position to hit the knives, should Pietro actually throw them at Wanda. Scott doubted he could stop them all, but maybe he could get a shot off Pietro if he had to.  
  
Pietro's eyes had gone completely white and shone with a light that disturbed Scott in ways he hadn't thought possible. He was standing in the center of the room and concentrating that awful, penetrating gaze on Wanda. She was the only person besides him who was still standing on the ground, not that she considered it a good thing. Scott realized in that instant that Pietro was never really afraid of Wanda, he just pretended to be. As he watched her stand there, shaking in her boots, Scott slowly realized just how delicate the balances in the Brotherhood were weighed. They hid their true power even from each other and downplayed their intelligence in public. Lie upon craftily layered lie was all that protected these mutants from each other and the world. Everything fell into place in Scott's mind at that moment. Todd's speech about how the Brotherhood was just as good as the X-Men, Pietro and Kurt's secret liasons, Wanda's detatched attitude, Kaysin and Jaysin and their father's warning earlier that morning, the lingering essence of distrust among Kurt and Todd, Todd and Pietro... and most importantly, it explained why Lance, Scott's rival, would approach him and ask him to leave the X-Men to join the Brotherhood. It took seeing Pietro snap at his sister and using a secondary mutation for Scott to get it.  
  
They all had secondary mutations. Every last one of them, and, if Scott guessed right, more than just two. All the lies and deciet... it was to hide who was enemies with who, who had allied themselves with whom, just what and how many powers each person had. The Brotherhood had started off simple. A place for mutants who didn't feel safe around other mutants. By luring them in with half truths, Magneto found a way to destabilize each of them, turn them against each other, so that the only thing they could be sure of was that Magneto and Mystique were the only people they could trust. They hinted at betrayals that they had set other members up to, thus gaining the trust of the teenagers. Until Kurt decided to get involved with Pietro and unsettled the lies that Pietro took as laws. Magneto left because he knew his hold was slipping, he knew that eventually the Brotherhood would pull together and fight him, so he ran to start over.  
  
What he didn't know was how long it would take for them to get over the damage he had caused. Nothing had changed since Magneto and Mystique left. The plotting still continued, secret alliances were made and broken every day, allies lied and played up each other's powers to keep ememies guessing... Occasionally things happened that threw the arrangements off a little and gave new light into someone's secrets, from there a rapid shift of alliegiences occured.  
  
It was so obvious why Kurt finally left. He had ties to Pietro and Pietro had told him that Scott was leaving the X-Men. Between the two of them, they could stop any alliance that Scott and Lance formed. Knowing that, it was clear why Lance had asked Scott to join the Brotherhood.  
  
To replace Magneto.  
  
Lance intended for Scott to be that center cog, the one that kept the others moving, but unlike Magneto who only got the other cogs more confused and jumbled, Scott was supposed to reverse the process, to get things to the point where they didn't need a center cog anymore.  
  
Scott looked around the room again and noticed Todd and Lance staring at him from the corner of their eyes.  
  
"Pietro. It's not that serious." Scott said out loud and focused on him. "If you don't stop this now, I'll make you. We can't afford to have you ruin things now."  
  
Pietro didn't move, but Scott could sense that he was focused on him now. Scott took a deep breath and continued. "The professor told me to look out for any signs of secondary mutations in you guys. I don't want anything to linger here that he'll be able to pick up on when he comes on Saturday, Pietro. We'll never get the X-Men off our backs then."  
  
"You came to spy on us?" Pietro asked, now turning to face Scott. Suddenly Scott felt gravity pulling on him and he dropped to the floor to face Pietro.  
  
"You tell me what good spying on you would have done. The X-Men beat you left and right. Why would they need me to spy on you?" Scott said, though he knew exactly what Pietro was talking about. "C'mon Pietro. Not now of all times. We still have so much work to do." Taking a risk, Scott carefully approached Pietro. "This was your idea after all, and you know how Lance gets. If we don't do this right, then we'll never hear the end of it."  
  
Quicksilver tensed as Scott came closer, but he noticed the knives slow down a little. That meant that 'Tro was either calming down or getting ready to attack.  
  
Nevertheless, Scott smiled comfortingly and placed a hand on Pietro's shoulder. "We'll even let you keep the damn speakers. Maybe you could plan some music to play or something."  
  
Scott practically felt everyone hold their breath as they waited for Pietro's answer. His eyes narrowed even more.  
  
"Any music?"  
  
Scott felt his smile turn wooden. "Almost any music."  
  
"And I can keep the room?"  
  
"No, I just said the speakers. Those are the only computers in the house and other people need them too."  
  
"And you won't throw me around if I wake you up with them?"  
  
"Pietro, you're pushing it."  
  
Scott nodded, business as usual, as Pietro set the room back to rights. "Okay, we've still got work to do and groceries to buy. Todd, is the fridge cleaned out?"  
  
"Yo, just got done."  
  
"Okay, Pietro, you're riding with Kaysin and Lance. Wanda, keys..." As soon as she deposited them in his hand, he tossed them to Pietro. "Try not to get a ticket or damage it or anything. It's at Kay's house. Well? Why are you all just standing around? We have a hundred rooms to straighten up, move!" There was a flurry of movement as everyone found something to do. Scott pressed a hand to his heart, which was still fluttering like a demented hummingbird. He prayed that he'd never have to do anything like that again. There was only so much a plain old mutant could do in a houseful of mutants with at least two other powers.  
  
"I know how you feel." Todd said. Scott whirled around to see him straightening the picture that Pietro had been arranging earlier. "It doesn't happen often, but when it does... You did good. I'm glad you came, after Magneto left, this place has just gone downhill." Todd smiled and left.  
  
Scott smiled too. It was becoming even more apparent who ran things around here, especially 'after Magneto left'... 


	14. Todd Fan, pt 1

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 14- Todd Fan  
  
Saturday.  
  
Thank God it's come already. The sooner we get this over with, the better. I never wanted to do this in the first place, but I have no intention of getting caught in a fight between Pietro and Lance. I don't like fighting. That kinda bites since I'm probably the most powerful of the Brotherhood, but hey, what they don't know won't hurt me. By the way, it's four in the morning. Pietro got us up early to check the place all over again. With the speakers, might I add, but we all knew it was coming and he was polite about it. I guess. Well, the bruises will fade in a week or two and he'll be his usual annoyingly pale self. He needs to get a tan, though I'm probably not the person to talk.  
  
"Hey, Todd. Do me a favor and start breakfast. I can't do this on empty." Scott says as he walks past. He's got that look on his face again. The 'Lance' look. Yep. Pietro's toast now.  
  
Speaking of toast, we have no bread. In fact... dammit. We forgot to get just regular food. All we bought were groceries for the Open House. Dammit. I'm so tired I can't even swear properly. Damn. Probably should tell Sc...  
  
"Todd? Mind getting outta the cabinet?"  
  
"Mmmm. Not enough food." I manage to mutter before rolling over. I'm just remembering how to sleep again when someone (I wonder who) grabs me by the back of my shirt and drags me out of my cozy cabinet. Bastard.  
  
"Yeah, we figured that out." Lance says and plops me down in a chair. "Scott went out and convinced Kaysin to help him find something." He shoves a plate of food at me and grins. "You look great."  
  
"Yeah. Thanks, Lance. Thanks." Trust him to mock me now of all times. Time... dammit. How did I sleep 'til ten??  
  
"We've been looking for you for hours. I told 'Tro he shouldn't wake you up early, but he didn't listen. Are you gonna eat, or just stare at me?" I don't mind either when it comes to that...  
  
"I'm still sleepy." Is all I say though; Lance doesn't take compliments well, not since he got back with Kitty.  
  
"You need a haircut." He says all solemn-like. Just because I know it pisses him off, I tossle my hair even more. "It's fine." I look at the plate and decide I'm not hungry. Bacon, eggs, pancakes and sausage. Blech. All that saturated fat... and charred animal flesh doesn't really appeal to me, maybe because I remember one too many times when that was almost me on that plate there. "So. What's everyone doing now?"  
  
"Basically, hiding their stuff." Lance shrugs and picks a strip of bacon off my plate. Just to have something to do, I cram some pancake in my mouth, but I can tell it's gonna take a lot of chewing for me to swallow it. "Kurt's fixing up his room."  
  
I pause chewing to frown.  
  
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I guess Pietro asked him to at least pretend, Principal Buttface already knows we're mutants and it'll only make things worse if he knows that Pietro and Kurt are... well." Kurt's lived with us for almost two months now, and Lance still has difficulty accepting that. Well, it's true, the two of them are Bayville's biggest womanizers- no one even saw it coming. I refuse to believe they really do anything. First of all, Kurt's covered in fur, for Christ's sake, and I know Pietro... the sneaky little bastard is probably plotting something and-  
  
I'm not supposed to think like that. That's why Lance invited Scott over. We're supposed to stop thinking like that. But it's hard.  
  
"Dammit, Todd. Swallow." Lance growls at me. "You've had that one little piece of pancake in your mouth for five minutes." I look at the clock. Four minutes and fifteen seconds actually, but I swallow anyhow. "Ugh. Just eat later. Go to bed. I'll make sure 'Tro stays out." Fine by me, care to join me? "And I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no. I've got some more errands to run. Scott'll probably wake you up around one."   
  
"Whatever." I mutter. Why can't Lance come wake me up? Damn that Kitty. She's always ruining everything.  
  
"You're not thinking bad things about Kitty, are you?" Lance asks as he follows me from the kitchen. Damn me. Why am I so obvious? Lance laughs and heads for the door.  
  
"Hi, Scott." I hate him too.  
  
"Hey. I suggest you crash while you can. I'm taking Pietro to Mason for a while so you guys have til about one to sleep."  
  
"What about you?" I ask. He was up at four just like everyone else.  
  
"I'm waiting in the car while he goes shopping." Scott's mask slips and he makes a painful face. "I'll sleep there." I bet Mr. Military could sleep standing. "No, Todd, I can't sleep standing, but the seats of my car do fold back." He laughs too and heads for the door.  
  
"I hate you." I tell the first person I see next. Unfortunately it's Wanda and I interupted her telling me that she hated me. Ow. I'm too tired to even yelp. Go away Pietro. I especially hate you. Yes, Scott's outside. Stop looking at me like that.  
  
"You realize that you're talking out loud, right?" Freddy says. Thank you Freddy, you're the only person honest enough to tell me instead of looking at me like I grew a trunk and have apples growing out of my head. "No problem."  
  
Hmm. I never could figure him out. I drag my weary body to my room. Thank God it's downstairs. I look at the weeping willow painted on my wall and without another thought, curl up at it's base and fall asleep.  
  
"Hey, Todd. Wake up. Time to get ready."   
  
I slowly open my eyes and see Scott standing in my doorway. Yay. It's one already.   
  
I slowly drag myself to sitting position and wonder if Lance is back. Then I kick myself for thinking about him at all, since Miss Kitty is seeing him again. Did I mention I hate her?  
  
From sitting position, to a crouch, from crouch to standing. Man, it's a long way up. What was I doing? ... Uh. I think... hm. Good question. I think I'll just sleep on it.  
  
"Todd. C'mon. You need to eat something. You haven't eaten all day."  
  
I'm tired.  
  
"I know, but try eating something. Or do I need to get Wanda in here?"  
  
Who are you?  
  
"It's Scott, Todd. Now move."  
  
Don't wanna.  
  
"Fine."  
  
Ugh. Cold. Wet. MY CARPET!!  
  
"Glad you noticed." Scott says as he tucks the bucket under his arm. "Hurry up and get something to soak that up. Then get ready. You wasted half an hour."  
  
Twenty seven minutes and three seconds, actually. And ten milliseconds. So there.  
  
I put a towel over the spot of carpet where that idiot dumped the water and trudge to the bathroom. Oh yeah, I think I need a bathrobe. Back to my room, step on the wet towel that's covering the wet carpet. Grab bathrobe, step on towel on spot again and head back to the bathroom.  
  
Damn you Pietro. This is my bathroom time. Go find a mirror somewhere else. Screw you too.  
  
I turn on the shower and wonder if someone can drown while they're in the shower. I'll try that someday. I think. Now that I'm really thinking, I don't think I will. In fact, the mechanics of drowning while taking a shower are a bit... well, I don't know what they are, but they're extremely whatever they are. Or something. What was I doing? Shower. Well, I should go to the bathroom, then. Except I'm already in the bathroom. What the Hell?   
  
After staring at the walls around me for a minute, exactly, I shrug and grab the bottle of shampoo. If I'm going insane then it sure is helping me remember what I'm supposed to be doing.  
  
Exactly three minutes later, I catch myself staring at the wall again. Huh? Again? I was staring at the wall before? Weird. What was I... rinsing the shampoo out. Right.  
  
By the time I finish my shower and get out of the bathroom, an hour has passed. That had to have been the longest shower in the history of mutantkind. Well, excluding Pietro and Kurt's showers. Yuck. Bad thoughts.  
  
Return to bedroom, collapse on bed, (When did I put a bed in here?) realize it's not my room, get up and trudge to my room. No bed here. Okay, collapse on the floor. Five minutes later, my brain kicks in and I get up again. Clothes. Where are my clothes? We have to look presentable, right? Dammit. Totally unfair. Boxers or briefs? Jeans or dress pants? White socks or black? Are they matching? Who cares? Find a shirt. This is the tricky part, making the shirt match the socks and pants. Hmm. The purple one'll do for now. I hate wearing button up shirts. Oh yeah. Shoes. That's easy. I only have one pair of dress shoes. Hope they fit.  
  
They do. Redo buttons on shirt and try to open door at the same time... wait. Stop. Open door. Turn around, is the room straight? Yes. Okay. Now redo buttons. Bah. Who needs buttons. Where is everyone?   
  
I cautiously peer around the corner. No one in the piano room. Or in the kitchen. Or in the TV room. Or... where'd they go? I stand still in the TV room and listen.  
  
There, I heard Scott somewhere to my left. I spin around to try to find him and I'm facing... nothing. I turn back around and suddenly Scott materializes in the middle of the room, just walking as though he didn't notice he did anything weird. Next thing I know, Pietro whizzes past, mouth moving as though he's saying something, but not making a sound. Freaky. I turn around and see Lance looking at me. How long was he standing there?  
  
"Are you okay?" Someone asks.   
  
"Yeah. Fine." I answer, wondering who it was. It's two fifty-four. I don't feel good. I mean, I feel fine, but there are these gaps... like I'm missing something.  
  
"Your hair's a mess." Pietro says as he zips past me. "And you need a haircut." Then he attacks me with a comb. Suddenly I don't feel okay at all. "Are you sure you're okay? You're really pale."  
  
"Yeah yeah."   
  
There's the doorbell, just as Pietro backs off with that damn torture instrument. Ten bucks says it's the Professor.  
  
I am ten dollars richer. Oh yeah. Who's the Toad? I'm the Toad. Yo.  
  
Pleasantries are exchanged, blah blah blah. I'm bored. When will this be over? I guess I'll just find someplace quiet to avoid everyone. Where would that be?  
  
A/N  
  
Very confusing, but I just couldn't resist doing a Toad POV right before things get crazy. Which they will. By the way, that next to last line (Who's the Toad? I'm the Toad. Yo) was ripped off my friend, Fran. She says that being able to scream that at the top of your lungs as a victory mantra makes having a name that rhymes with 'man' worthwhile. I dunno, maybe it's funnier when she says it 'cause she insists on pronounciating every letter and somehow manages to do that while babbling at the speed of... sound. Or something. Yeah, all my friends are weird. She's decided to take over the Think Deep story, since I've all but abandoned it. Sorry. But you'll be happy to know that she helped me with a torture scene in To Live Again, and she'll be there when things finally go downhill. I'm sorry, did I say finally? I mean, totally, without any sense of loyalty to the characters, let a homicidal teenager loose on an already violent story. Yeah, one day, you'll look back on that and think, what the Hell was Furor thinking?   
  
Well, anyway. I probably shouldn't promote one story over the other, so I'm sorry. I'll make up for it. Somehow. 


	15. Todd Fan, pt 2

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 15- Todd Fan Part II  
  
"Have you seen Todd?" Scott asked Lance as he walked past him. It was four thirty and no one had seen him since the first guests had arrived over an hour ago.  
  
"Nope. Not even near the buffet. He was acting kind of weird earlier. Think he's sick?"  
  
"I hope not." Pietro said as he worked his way through the crowd. For a house with more than 100 rooms and less than 50 guests, there were an awful lot of people in that one room. "When Todd gets sick it's usually serious. Last time we had Mystique with us. She pulled some strings and got a doctor to stop by, but he was kinda shady."  
  
"I'll look for him." Jaysin said. "You guys go ahead and start showing people around." Jaysin decided to check the control room first, since it was the one place that guarenteed privacy. He searched the whole room. No Todd. From there Jasin searched the basement and cellar. By the time he got done, everyone was on the second floor, so he could search the first without worrying about spectators. Freddy joined him and they even looked in all the cabinets and closets. Nothing. Freddy and Jaysin went to the next floor and caught a few scraps of what Pietro was telling his group about the house. Mostly it was about how Scott and Lance had fallen in love with a stripper. A few minutes later loud laughter was heard, presumably Pietro had reached the punchline of that particular joke.  
  
"I'm worried." Freddy said as they bypassed the rooms that had people in them and headed for the third floor.  
  
"Yeah. Me too." Jaysin admitted as they abandoned yet another Todd-less room.  
  
At last, all that was left was the attic.  
  
"This isn't good. Jaysin said as he stepped into the empty room. "Maybe he's outside."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Let's tell Scott and Lance. He has to be outside."  
  
Freddy didn't say anything as they went back downstairs.  
  
"What? He went outside like that?" Scott said a little too loudly. "Where would he go outside?"  
  
"I don't know, the cars are locked and both are still there. Wanda and I are gonna look for him. Freddy's a bit... well, out of it I guess. We'll be back in an hour, or you ask the Professor to find us, okay." Jaysin nodded to Wanda and the two of them made their way to the door.  
  
"Where do we start?" she asked.  
  
"Under the cars, under the house, in the shed... the only place after that is the forest."  
  
"He's afraid of that forest."  
  
"Then that's the last place we look."  
  
Todd wasn't under the car. He wasn't under the house, or in the shed. Jaysin even crawled under both of them to check. No Todd.  
  
"Well, are you sure you checked everywhere inside?" Wanda asked, uneasiness creeping into her voice.  
  
"Yes. Under and inside everything." Jaysin ran a dirty hand through his equally dirty hair. "Scott's gonna go thermal. If Todd's in the forest..."  
  
"He's not. Trust me. He first met Logan and Victor in that forest. He won't even go near them unless someone's with him."  
  
Jaysin looked helplessly at the trees. They didn't look very inviting, and even he- an avid outdoorsman- wasn't too keen on going in there. "So I guess we tell Scott."  
  
"After you." Wanda said quickly.  
  
"Thanks." Jaysin said as he trudged up the steps. He opened the door and with a heavy sigh, entered.  
  
Everyone was back in the TV room again. A few people looked up to see who had just come in, and upon seeing a dirty and bedraggled Jaysin and a worried Wanda, fell silent. In a few seconds, the whole room was still.  
  
"He's gone. Not a trace anywhere. The only other place to look is in the forest." Jaysin said as Scott pushed his way through the crowd.  
  
"The forest?! Why would he go there, he's terrified of the forest."  
  
"He's not inside. He's not in the car, he's not under the car, house or shed. Where else could he have gone?"  
  
"Wait. Are you telling me that Todd went outside? I thought he was just going back to sleep somewhere." Pietro was moving into panic mode.  
  
"Search the house again. He has to be here somewhere." Scott said and his shades glinted dangerously.  
  
"We'll help." Someone in the crowd offered.  
  
The search was on.  
  
"Nothing. we've had people looking over the same rooms two or three times. He's not inside. Logan and I went with some of the guys and checked under the house and shed again. He's got to be in the forest."  
  
"But why would he do that?"  
  
"You think Victor's back? What if the person we saw was really Mystique and Todd's been gone for a long time now?"  
  
"No, that was Todd we saw. Trust me on that one. It was him."  
  
"Should we call the cops?"  
  
"He's a mutant. Why would the cops look for him?"  
  
"They don't k- well, yeah, they do know."  
  
The Brotherhood was gathered on the front porch staring at the forbidding trees.  
  
"Dark'll fall soon. We gotta ask the Professor to help." Jaysin said finally.  
  
"Todd's power makes it so you can't find him like that. Not even with Cerebro. We'd have to search the whole forest."  
  
"Fine. Get flashlights. Ask as many people for help as possible. Walkie-talkies, extra batteries. Hurry now." Scott glared at the forest as if daring it to step out of line. If Todd was really in there, Scott swore to himself that all the trees were going. "Where's Logan?"  
  
"Right here, Slim. I can't pick up his trace. I don't think he's outside, but I can't find 'im inside. There's no place else fer him to be."  
  
"Thanks for helping."  
  
"No problem. Missing kids are everyone's problem, espeically if they're in the Brotherhood."  
  
Scott nodded briskly. "Okay, Kurt, call the Institute and see if he showed up there for some reason. Logan, do you think Creed, Magneto or Mystique may have shown up?"  
  
Logan sniffed the air. "I'm picking up a strange scent from that direction, but it smells more like... you know that smell right before it rains... that's it."  
  
Scott handed him a flashlight and took one himself. "Then let's follow it. So far it's our only lead."  
  
Logan nodded and led the way. In the other direction, twenty volunteers headed into the forest while the rest waited for help to arrive in the form of the police. Lance stayed behind to coordinate things with Pietro. "Hope it ain't a storm."  
  
"It isn't, I assure you." Ororo said.   
  
"Then we got ourselves a suspicious character."  
  
Professor Xavier was searching the area at Lance's request. He had noticed that Todd was preoccupied when he had first arrived, but then again, Todd wasn't a people person and had probably balked at the idea of strangers walking through his home. Despite Todd's adverseness to the company of strangers, it was rather odd that he would leave the house on his own, and especially without at least one person noticing. For him to be in the forest meant only one thing, as Lance so aptly put it.  
  
Todd had been kidnapped.  
  
From what Lance said, it wasn't the first time. He didn't explain why anyone would kidnap Todd, but Xavier assumed it was because he was the easiest to get, since Freddy was almost impossible to hold against his will, Pietro was too fast and paranoid to get caught in the first place and Lance wasn't the type to accept imprisonment at all. Todd had no agressive powers and was reluctant to get into a situation where he'd need to fight. The closeness of the Brotherhood guarenteed that they'd come looking for him. The snag was that, although Todd avoided fighting, he would retailate if he thought he had to, and in his disoriented state, he may not even have realized that he had been kidnapped. That meant that the Brotherhood had no clues to go by, since all the other times Todd had been abducted, he left a trail.  
  
Charles Xavier sighed. "I'm afraid that I can't find anything out of the ordinary, Lance. Whoever the kidnappers were, they weren't mutants and they're long gone by now."  
  
"How long is long gone?"  
  
"At least two hundred miles away. I could try with Cerebro, but anyone who can cover 200 miles in such a short time has resources that put them at a distinct advantage, or..."  
  
"Or?"  
  
"Or they are capable of deflecting my search. That means that Cerebro will do no good at all."  
  
_______________________________________  
  
AN.  
  
Dudes. I am so sorry. I just moved to a boarding school and they had hell getting the net up. I'll try to post a lot in the next few days.  
  
PS. THanks if anyone's still waiting for me, I had it all written and then the blasted server crashed. I hate blaster worms. 


	16. Todd Fan, pt 3

A/N  
  
IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER, -Insert Evil Laugh- IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER!!!  
  
It's raspberry seltzer and pringles this time... And I have no idea what's coming together, but I think I'm falling to pieces. Is this how drugged up singers feel? This giddy sense of elation that I can turn my own horrible experiences into a life lesson for the masses? Well, not exactly my experiences, but it was close...  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 16- Todd Fan III  
  
Todd woke up cold and stark naked on an equally cold and naked floor.  
  
It felt like stone.  
  
Todd looked around and realized that he wasn't quite naked. He still had his pants on, after all. His shirt was lost somewhere, though only God knew how it got lost since it was only supposed to be on his body. Maybe a shirt could get lost on Freddy, but definitely not Todd. As he sat there thinking these, and other arcane thoughts, Todd decided he needed to do something.  
  
So, what...  
  
"I'll sleep on it." He muttered to himself and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the ground.  
  
He sat up a moment later. "Where am I?"  
  
"Am I?" His echo answered. Todd considered.  
  
"I think so."  
  
"So?" came his echo.  
  
"So what?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"Does it matter?"  
  
"Stop confusing me!!"  
  
"Confusing me??"  
  
Todd scowled in the darkness. Someone was playing with his mind, and this was one Toad who wasn't gonna take it.  
  
"Alright, bring it on."  
  
"Bring it on." After pausing for a moment as his slow, confused and very disoriented mind tried to tell him something important and failed, Todd ran into the darkness swinging.  
  
And promptly came running back as whoever was out there soundly punched him in the jaw. They must have knocked something over in the process because there was a loud metal clanging noise and Todd glared in that direction. "Think you're so smart, huh? I gotcha covered." He whispered fiercely, rubbing his sore jaw and backing up all the while. Truth was, Todd had gone yellow and was only looking for a way out.  
  
All of a sudden someone hit him hard in the base of his skull and he crumpled in a heap on the floor.  
  
With a moan, Todd rolled over and sat up slowly, clutching the back of his head. He wondered briefly if he was still alive but when his finger slipped and poked the spot where he had been hit, he was forcefully reminded that, yes, he was still alive, and no, he hadn't dreamed it. "At least I'm not bleeding." he grumbled.  
  
"Bleeding." Someone whispered in the distance.  
  
Todd was up and running in a flash, but surprised to discover that whoever his attacker was, was much faster than he, or that they weren't quite as far away as he thought. Or hell, maybe there was more than one person... Either way, this time, the attacker did draw blood. As Todd stumbled back a few steps, clutching his face, he could feel the cool dampness slowly begin to leak from the wound. The puncher must have worn a ring, Todd realized. The back of his foot was resting lightly on something and he cautiously leaned down to find out what. It was a garden hoe and Todd smirked as he picked it up and prepared to clobber the stranger. He gave a short laugh and was surprised to hear them laughing too.   
  
"What?!" He demanded. There was the sound of something metal falling and Todd dived to the ground. His foot rested on something hard and, taking it to be a human's foot, Todd lashed out at it. Something hard hit Todd's shoulder and the next thing he knew, he was buried under a ton of debris, though what from, he had no idea. It didn't matter, he realized as he slipped, entirely against his will, into the darker darkness of unconsciousness. 


	17. Pain

A/N  
  
Yo, there's a reference to my other story, To Live Again, in here and what may or may not be considered a spoiler, I'm thinking ahead for once in my life and aiming to tie the two stories together, so...   
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 17- Pain  
  
"I don't understand. Really. Where could he be?" Scott was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, elbows braced on the table. They had just returned from a futile search of the forest. The scent was really from a nearby stream and there weren't any footprints near it, so they assumed they had followed a false lead.  
  
"Dunno, but it don't look good." Logan answered gruffly. As much as he detested Todd, the idea of one of Bayville's mutants disappearing without a trace scared him, especially a survivor like Toad.  
  
"So what do we do now?" Pietro asked.  
  
"We wait for him to drop a line. He always does." Lance answered and poured himself another cup of 'tainted' orange juice. Logan almost smiled. The Brotherhood kept it's faith in Todd, no matter how many memory charms anyone worked on them. He was one of the few people who remembered what happened after Pheonix showed up. Haiden left once everything settled down, and Lucifer... well, that was one thing no one knew. He had altered the memories of all the mutants except Logan and a few other people and then he had disappeared. If anyone could help them find Todd, it was him.  
  
"Well, there is something we can do." Kaysin said slowly.  
  
Everyone held their breath as they waited for whatever utterly ridiculous idea he had.  
  
"We could get help from someone else."  
  
There it was... everyone breathed again.   
  
"Kaysin. You're leaking."  
  
"Huh?" He blushed and glanced down.  
  
"Here," He handed Jaysin a tissue. "If you hurry you stop the studpidity before it drips from your ears onto your clothes."  
  
"Funny, Jaysin, really." Kaysin said, trying to hide the several shades of crimson that his face and ears were changing.  
  
"Well, I think we should search the house again, this time for secret doors." Pietro said.  
  
There was silence until Kaysin coughed gently. "Yes, yes. I think that's a brilliant idea. Perhaps we missed Todd in one of the rooms."  
  
Pietro nodded and headed for the basement. After all, that's where all the hiddens doors are in the movies... no one noticed Kaysin pause in the mirror before he followed them down the stairs.  
  
"From my ears..." he muttered quietly...  
  
Todd reached a hand out of the pile of stuff and slowly pulled himself up. His internal clock was really fucked now. He looked around and wondered whether or not the attackers were still there. As he waded out of the pile and brushed himself off, Todd really began to think. It didn't help, but at least he was convinced that he was still sane.   
  
"Huh?" Todd said a little while later. 'What was I doing? I think I'll sleep on it.'  
  
He laid down on the floor and then got back up. "Oh, no! I'm not falling for that one again." He jumped to his feet as the damn bastard(s) started yelling 'Again, Again, Again' like some demented Teletubbies. They must have gotten the point when he glared at them, because their chorus quickly died out. Todd gave a short, curt nod and stalked away. After tripping unceremoniously over a few metal thingers, Todd cast a glance over his shoulder and walked right into a wall.   
  
Or he thought he did. His smarting nose was screaming 'Wall, you idiot!! Wall!' but his arms were busy telling him 'Nothing's there you idiot!! Nothing!' Todd let his arm's lead him and he took another step forward.  
  
And pitched straight forward into... nothing.  
  
Pietro was searching the basement with a fine toothed comb.  
  
Actually, he was using a small hammer. But the comb sounded better, Lance decided. He was in the kitchen trying to find something to eat. Despite what he had said, Lance was a bit worried. He opened the cabinet that he had found Todd in earlier and saw a tuft of purple sticking out of the wall.  
  
"Puh- puh... 'Tro!! TRO!!! I FOUND YOUR SECRET PASSAGE, 'TRO, I FOUND IT!!"  
  
Todd sat up groggily with the impression that he had done the same thing before countless times and lately it was just getting too hard to do. He sighed. Before Kitty interupted his life, Todd never woke up feeling as though he'd be better off in a coma.  
  
"My spidey sense is tingling." He whispered and his tongue shot out to rip a spider from the wall. Todd stopped thinking for a minute and decided that right now he was hungry and thinking came after eating. So while he picked his fill of spiders, he was blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was waiting to... er, befall him.  
  
Finaly Todd stood up and immediately fell back down as the rock that he was delicately balanced on, slid off the rock that IT was balanced on, and caused... an Avalanche. (A/N There goes the seltzer...)  
  
Todd rode that rock down the hill of rocks, and as it was still dark and he wasn't thinking and all, he was still blissfully unaware of the other catastrophe that was about to befall him again. Or as well, or... well, it's all a matter of perspective anyway. Todd was just cruising on his rock, holding on for dear life when it happened. The rock broke into about a million pieces. Four to be exact, but when you're surfing on a rock down a hill of unknown proportions, hell yeah it was a million pieces.  
  
So, Todd did the best he could, which involved planting a foot or hand on each of the pieces and trying to keep them together. It was hard, but he managed.   
  
Until he started sweating.   
  
Which didn't take long at all.  
  
Before he knew it, Todd had lost the rocks on his left side and was coasting with only two. Until he hit a particularly nasty bump and had zero. Luckily, he landed on another sliding rock, or he wouldn't have been a... pretty sight... erm.. Moving on...  
  
Todd was holding on to that rock for all he was worth when suddenly, it tilted to the side. Todd tilted with it and vertigo took over from there. He, still locked on tight to the rock, did two flips in the air with a flair that made Tony Hawks look like an amateur and landed smoothly, just in time to make the jump again, and then once more after that. Now you must understand that by now, Todd and his precious rock were moving fast enough to make Pietro a bit jealous. So when he and that rock hit the water, they just skimmed right over the lake and kept going. Todd wasn't ever even aware of going over water. He was perfectly aware of water going over him, however, as the other OTHER catastrophe finally finished befalling. The rockslide slid, with a splash that reminded Todd (forcefully, you might say) of Freddy diving into a pond and just like with Freddy and the pond, sent a huge wave that always thoroughly drowned Todd.  
  
He and his rock (on the long trip, Toad had named him Jason) came to a stop. Todd stood up and the rock rocked. Todd quickly jumped off of it.  
  
Right into the damn cold water. Todd figured out which way was up and swam to the surface. He then swam to shore. Like the brilliant person that he is when he refuses to think, Todd swam all the way to the side of the lake that he and Jason had come from. Before he got to shore, though, it occured to him that he may be swimming the wrong way, and he turned around and swam back. When he finally climbed out of the water, he realized that he had lost his shoes somewhere. Great. Pietro was gonna kill him. Todd decided to walk for a while and he used his belt to tie Jason to a rock so he wouldn't run off. Todd then picked a direction and started walking. Once he pulled himself out of the water again and kicked Jason for laughing at him (and cursed out Jason, the universe and himself in particular), Todd picked a different direction.  
  
Far behind him, another Avalanche was coming. Of course that meant that there would be another in the very near future for Todd, especially considering how THAT Avalanche gets when he finds something blocking his path... 


	18. Fear

A/N  
  
Just making sure everyone's with me here... Todd's 'attackers' were really just tools he stepped on, and yeah, you can get knocked unconscious by them, and yep, they do draw blood at times. I've stepped on so many that I wonder why I don't just put the damn things where they belong instead of leaving them laying around... Any how. The voices were none other than Todd's echo. I just had to clarify that in case it wasn't clear, y'know? Or maybe you don't... Hmmm. I'm confusing myself again, so let's move on to something that I can speak in an educated manner about. Or speak about in an educated manner... Screw it.  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 18- Fear  
  
"Why the hell would he be in there?" Logan asked, genuinely amazed that there was a person out there who put secret tunnels in kitchen cabinets, and even more so that there was a person out there who could actually find it accidentally. Who sleeps in a cabinet, for crying out loud?  
  
"I have no idea. I found him in here yesterday morning. He's good at hiding." Lance responded. He could guess why Todd chose that cabinet, but he wasn't going to say anything about that to Logan. After all, if the X-Men found out about the Brotherhood's 'secret stash' then they'd be shipped off to the nearest foster home, pronto.  
  
"So, how does it work? Do we actually have to climb in the cabinet?" Scott asked.  
  
Lance shrugged and began knocking on the back of it, casually sliding the box of bottles to the side as though it belonged there. After the fourth knock, he felt something give under his knuckles and gasped as the entire section of the room that they were in fell away to reveal a slight curving ramp.  
  
Pietro looked at the missing part of the wall and began laughing hysterically. "And we thought the house was settling... we should have replaced those cracked tiles the first time around, Lance."  
  
"Whoa." was all he could say as Scott shone a flashlight into the tunnel.  
  
"It looks like it leads to a storage shed. There are pots, rakes, shovels... man. It looks like it was hit by a hurricane."  
  
"I smell blood." Logan whispered as he clenched his fists and his adamantium claws slid from his knuckles. He stalked into the room and began prowling around.  
  
"Well, let's think about this. If you were asleep and opened a secret tunnel that dumped you in a room full of broken pots, rusted tools and no light, chances are, you'd cut yourself on something, too." Kaysin said in an uncharacteristically icy tone.  
  
Logan didn't say anything, but continued prowling. Scott and the others followed with lights. Logan was nearing the origin of the scent when something jumped out of the ground and attacked him. Logan swiped at it and backed up at once, shouting in surprise, but whatever it was fell back into the ground. As soon as Scott heard Logan shout, he turned around and shone the flashlight towards him. After an unspoken word from Logan, they circled around it and cautiously approached. When nothing happened, Logan poked the ground where the thing had been. Still nothing. He raked the ground with his claws and felt something long and slim. He grabbed it fast and held it in the light.  
  
Kaysin giggled helplessly, and before long Pietro and Kurt were right there with him. In fact, in the time it took Scott and Logan to realize just what had attacked Logan, every single person was laughing- even the Professor, though he was damn good at hiding it.  
  
"It seems like Kay's not the only one getting attacked by garden tools, huh, Logan." Scott said wryly.  
  
"Grrrrr. Shut up." Logan growled, but couldn't help grinning a little.   
  
"Hey, there's a door here." Jaysin called from almost a hundred meters away. The cave was huge and just underneath the basement. Chances were that there was a generator down there and also where the wires for all the computers in the basement were.  
  
"I think Todd may have found that hoe before me. It's got his blood on it." Logan said, his tone sober as Kurt yelped and dodged another tool. THey were all over the place and the dust was so thick that you couldn't see them until you stepped on them. The mutants left footprints in the dirt, but even at the bottom of the prints was more dust. "This place hasn't been opened in centuries, which kinda makes me wonder..."  
  
"What?" Scott looked up from peering at the 50 foot plummet and rock gulley beyond the door, which was actually more like a stiff blanket than a door.  
  
"This house ain't that old, yet someone built a way in and out of here. If this place has been empty for so long, why is that thing in the cabinet there? Who builds something like that and doesn't use it? How could they have known about this place if they haven't been here? It don't add up."  
  
"I hope he didn't fall down there." Kaysin said, completely oblivious. Logan walked up behind him and sniffed.  
  
"He's down there, alright. Wet himself too."  
  
"I think I would too if I fell down there in the dark."  
  
"To be perfectly honest, I think I would too." Logan shrugged. "I don't like the thought of being buried in all that."  
  
"So let's find him." Lance urged."  
  
"Looks like there was a rockslide. Might not be safe."  
  
"All the more reason to go get him."  
  
"Hold it, hold it. We need a plan." Scott said, halting the pissing contest that Logan and Lance were just getting into. "What if he's buried? Or hurt? Or what if he's not even down there? It's been more than 24 hours, that's a lot of time for something to happen to someone in the dark. Not only that, but what if Todd caused this rockslide? He may be trapped and we wouldn't even know it because there's too much stuff here."  
  
"So what do we do, Slim?" Logan asked as he looked back into the hole.  
  
"We go back to the basement." Scott said firmly.  
  
Todd was lost again. He had wandered around for a while and then decided to return to Jason. Just to make sure he didn't get lonely. So Todd followed the sound of water and found himself on something that seemed to be a cliff overlooking the water. That was fine with Todd, except he didn't know if he could dive from where he was, or in which direction Jason was. Knowing that damn rock, he'd probably just sit quietly if Todd called him, so Todd didn't even bother. Instead he turned around and tried to go back the way he came, emphasis on tried. After a while, he lost the sound of the water and tripped over a rock. When he got up, he had lost his feeble sense of direction and his hold on the wall.  
  
He stumbled on, vaguely aware of the fact that he was starting to get very hungry and hadn't seen, or heard a single bug since those spiders. That seemed like days ago, actually. Todd still didn't trust his internal clock, with as many times as he had fallen and been knocked unconscious, he was beginning to doubt that he was moving at all.  
  
Todd paused to pull his sock a little higher and sighed when the whole thing slid almost up to his thigh. He took the soleless socks off and tossed them to the side. Then he wandered some more with his hands stuffed in his pockets, wondering how much longer he had until he lost his pants too. BAM, he tripped again and as he fell into blissful nothingness, realized that he had torn his pants up...  
  
"Technically speaking, it would work." Pietro said as he frantically typed away at a computer. "The problem is that the tunnel is probably just like this room, quake-proof." One of the large monitors above Pietro came to life and showed the same image as on Pietro's computer. "If you'll look above."  
  
The mouse moved on the big screen and pointed to a window called Seismic Activity. Pietro did some clicking and the screen changed. "Alright, this is telling all the recent quakes we've had. There's nothing here since we got the speakers fixed. See, if that tunnel is insulated the way this room is, then you could split an atom in there and not feel it outside. I think it has something to do with all the adamantium in the area."  
  
"What?" Logan demanded.  
  
"Well, there's a lot of raw, unprocessed adamantium around here. I think this room has a sheet of it surrounding it, that's why we didn't feel the quake when Lance got mad a few days ago. Bayville is pretty much built on adamantium. There are sheets of it everywhere and even what some scientists are calling Adamantium fields."  
  
"So we'll have to go down there on our own." Scott said stoicly.  
  
"Not neccessarily." Pietro said with a smug grin. "I've been running a search for maps of Bayville's underground, just on a hunch." The screen changed again, this time showing an ever growing list of files. "This computer is amazing. Possibly even as powerful as the one the X-Men have." He clicked a button labeled 'Specified Search' and began filling in what he was looking for. They waited silently as the comuter searched for anything matching what Pietro asked for.  
  
20 hits.  
  
He went back and specified even more stuff that he needed and searched again.  
  
7 hits.  
  
Finally he limited it down to two items.  
  
One was a Readme file.  
  
The other was an application.  
  
Pietro clicked on the application and a new window opened. It was filled with staticky lines but the cleared quickly as the resolution focused.  
  
"This is a program that shows movement in the tunnels." Pietro said. They watched as a bunch of rats ran around, chasing something before the picture changed to show more rats. "Ah," Pietro said as he realized something. "We should probably specify where we want to look." He clicked and typed some more and then they were looking at a lake. "Hmmm. How'd that get there?" Pietro asked.  
  
Logan squinted at the screen. "Is that underground?"  
  
"Yep." Pietro did something and the screen showed black and white instead of the green of Infrared.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"No problem. I think this can also show depth, heat... pretty complex actually, considering the extent these tunnels go."  
  
"Hmm." Logan wondered, again, how that equipment got put up without anyone going in those tunnels and why they would set up an underground surveillence station. Maybe there was another way in... The scene changed again and they were staring at another lake. Pietro explained that it wasn't the same one because the coordinates were different. He tapped a key and stared at the first lake.  
  
"I feel like there's something obvious here that I'm missing."  
  
Kaysin giggled. "Why would someone tie two rocks together with a belt?"  
  
"Not now Kaysin."  
  
"But seriously. Are they afraid one will run away?"  
  
"Will you-"  
  
Pietro interupted Logan as the older man turned on Kaysin. "Dear God, he's right. Those rocks are tied together with a belt." He moved the mouse and pointed.  
  
"Todd?"  
  
"I guess, but why isn't the monitor picking him up?"  
  
"Maybe he's under the water."  
  
"He should have come up by now."  
  
"He can stay under for at least half an hour."  
  
The picture changed again and they were staring at the second lake.  
  
"See anything, Kaysin?"  
  
"Ummmm. Well, what's that?"  
  
"I have no idea." Pietro muttered as he squinted at the screen. He tapped a few buttons and the camera zoomed in. More, more, more... still no one could identify the floating object. Suddenly the image was wrested from them and replaced by another.  
  
"There he is." Lance cheered. Todd was slowly getting to his feet and looking around in his usual dazed manner. His shirt was missing, as were his socks and shoes and he had all but ripped the waist off his pants. "That was a sock we saw..."  
  
Pietro was typing madly. "He's heading towards an underground... bunker... there's machinery here, guys... Look at this." A second monitor lit up and everyone stared at it.  
  
"What is that? Why is it there?" Ororo asked as she stared at the buildings. There were lights on, but the motion detectors were only picking up rats moving around. Pietro cycled through each of the rooms- there were supplies, a sink was gushing water from a hole where the tap had been before it rusted away, lights were on in just about every room and in one, presumably a dining room, there was even a plate, though the contents had long since been eaten.  
  
"I don't know. But I don' t like that. Not at all. Reminds me of all those ghost ship movies..."  
  
"What? Scott asked sharply.  
  
"You know, like the boats that drift into the Bermuda triangle and then drift out with all the people inside gone. Food still on the table, candles that burned themselves out... Or maybe that one Stephen King movie... the Langoliers I think it was. But there was this one famous ghost ship that shows up every now and then with a skeleton crew, and I mean literally, and right after the boat that saw them radios it in, all their communications go dead and when the Coast Guard finally arrives, it's just like on the Bermuda ghost ships..."  
  
"I really wish you hadn't said that." Kaysin said in a tearful voice.  
  
"Oh, please, who believes that anyway." Pietro laughed.  
  
Kaysin sobbed and pointed to something in the background of the screen.  
  
A huge boat with full sails.  
  
And skeletons. 


	19. Face It

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 19- Face It  
  
Pietro was hyperventilating, all thoughts of the ubsurdity of ghost ships gone. Scott, Logan and Ororo stood over his shoulder, staring at the computer and trying to figure out if it was a joke. Freddy was calmly crocheting in the background, seemingly unaware of what was going on and chatting absentmindedly about the types of rocks that he had identified in the tunnel. Lance was watching Freddy and wondering when the teacher had even gone over the different types of rocks and vaguely concerned that Todd was headed straight for a ghost ship, complete with animated skeletons. Todd hated bones. He wouldn't even eat chicken if it had bones. And now he was lost in a dark twisted maze of tunnels underneath Bayville and had chosen, of all things, the path that led straight to...   
  
"Moving skeletons..." Lance's eyebrow twitched and Freddy nervously set his sweater down.  
  
"Now Lance, you can't panic. What if you cause another quake? What about Todd?"  
  
"Moving. Skeletons." Lance's voice was steady and the twitch was gone. "Moving." He added.  
  
"Oh dear." The Professor whispered in the kitchen where he and Jaysin had been fielding calls from concerned neighbors.  
  
"What?" Jaysin asked as he begged the pardon of a certain Ms. Williamson (this was her fifth hour-long call and he was looking for an escape) and covered the mouthpiece.  
  
In answer, the ground shook mightily and Jaysin slammed the phone down and made a grab for the Professor's wheelchair to hold it steady as the floor cracked beneath them.  
  
In the basement, things were only slightly better. Because of the nature of the room, no one knew that anything was happening at all. They were so focused on the camera stream that they didn't notice the new program open itself, and since the camera stream took priority, the small window immediately minimized, but blinked insistantly from the taskbar.  
  
Which wasn't neccesarily a good thing.  
  
"Uh, Scott could you come look at Lance for a sec. He's actin' funny." Freddy said as he peered at his friend, who was slowing turning a dark grey.  
  
"Hmm." Scott said as he turned, still trying to comprehend that the skeletons were moving... until he saw Lance, standing still as a statue. "Hey, it's no problem. It's probably just a mutant with the power of illusions, that's all." Scott walked over to Lance and patted his back. The look of confinant reassurance slowly faded and was replaced by his all-too-common 'I have no idea what's going on' face and he coughed gently. "Uh. Pietro. Could you check that Seismic Activity thing again..."  
  
"Muh...muh...oooooooooo...vuh, vuh-"  
  
"Pietro... c'mon now. You're the only one who knows how to use the damn thing." Scott patted Lance's shoulder again and tried to think of something other than how cliche it was that Lance had actually turned to stone at the news... (statues... I'm sensing a connection...) He gritted his teeth and pushed Pietro out of the way and clicked the minimize button on the streamer. A little window popped up.  
  
"Oh dear god..." Scott muttered as he glared at the computer. He then stalked to the door and flung it open.  
  
The door was blocked by hunks of concrete and debris. "Pietro..."  
  
Scott couldn't get himself to turn away from the door, but he heard the sound of slim fingers tapping keys and prayed desperately that what he was thinking was wrong. Logan walked up beside Scott.  
  
"I could cut us out, but it might just make things worse." he said.  
  
"There's... no visual." Pietro said. "The camera in the basement is still working, but it's been blocked by something." His voice was trembling.  
  
"This is bad." Freddy said, frustratingly calm even though they were buried in an adamantium cave with three of the world's biggest eaters and no food, not to mention the fact that Todd was still deeper beneath the earth's surface than they, headed towards... shall we say, the unmentionables...  
  
"Really?" Logan said genially as he lit a cigar. "How can you tell?"  
  
"The quake is still going on. If he shakes this place up anymore we could be looking at a lot of sink holes around here." Jaysin answered for him.  
  
"What do you mean by that?" Logan asked as he eyed the white-haired kid with an increasingly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
"A lot of Bayville and the surrounding cities are built on pretty loose sand. If you shake it up enough, it settles and becomes like quicksand. It'll suck half the state underground." Jaysin blinked as he took in Lance's grey tones and gingerly tapped his forehead. Lance muttered something and with a small hmph, Jaysin unceremoniously whacked him over the head with a chair. As Lance's knees gave in, Jaysin nodded to himself. "That should do it. You guys are gonna need a new house, by the way."  
  
"How..." Scott was staring at Jaysin as though he had seen a ghost. (A/N: I couldn't help it.)  
  
"Oh trust me, if it started out as a dump, it's definitely ruined now."  
  
"No... how did you get down here?"  
  
"Huh? Oh. That. I don't know. It just happened." Jaysin shrugged. "The Professor's right there. Whatever it was knocked him out cold." Jaysin shrugged and pointed at the metal table where Professor Xavier was laid out. Scott rushed to his side as everyone else struggled to figure out what was going on.  
  
"Hey, weren't Jaysin and the Professor upstairs? How'd they get down here so fast when the door was blocked?" Kurt said belatedly.  
  
"Dunno. Wasn't there an earthquake somewhere in the whole thing?" Wanda wondered while waiting for whatever would come next. (A/N: I'm sorry. And just for the record, I'm apologizing in advance as well)  
  
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Pietro pointed at a point on the screen, the point, as it was, that made him scream...er...*coughs*   
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Todd?"  
  
"No."  
  
"So what is it?"  
  
"I don't know but it's moving too fast!"  
  
"God, Pietro! You're an... whoa... it does move fast."  
  
"Lemme see, lemme see. I wanna see, too. Oh look it's a skeleton."  
  
"WHAT?!?!"  
  
"It's okay guys. It's friends with Todd, see. They're playing hide-and-seek. Todd's not good at this game is he... What are you doing?"  
  
Logan was slashing at the pile of rocks and Scott was pacing and muttering to himself.  
  
Lance had turned a deeper shade of grey and was crouched in a corner, whimpering to himself. Kaysin, Kurt and Wanda had retreated to a different corner and were trying to sort out what was going on while Jaysin and Ororo were checking on the Professor and quietly whispering back and forth. Freddy stood in the middle of it all, taking in the pictures that the camera was sending them.  
  
"So we're trapped here with a three story mansion caved in above us. We have no food, nothing except one of the most powerful computers in Bayville and our powers. Hmm." Freddy pulled on his ear. "It could be worse."  
  
"Yes. It could be much worse." Scott said as he stopped pacing to stare at the behemoth. Freddy was honestly confused at the look on Scott's face- relief.  
  
"Pietro, maintain your sanity. I need you to find the most direct path from here to the tunnel that leads to Todd. I'll blast a hole so we can go down there. You'll stay here with the Professor and you'll guide us through him. We leave as soon as the Professor wakes up and we fill him in. Until then," Scott nodded at the computer, "I do believe this isn't the only powerful computer. We can still try to contact the X-Men and organize help for the people above ground." Scott looked around, measuring his comrades. Now was when the Brotherhood's talents outshone the X-Men, nevermind that it was the Brotherhood who caused the whole mess in the first place. "Someone, get Lance to change back. You three," he singled Wanda, Kurt and Kaysin out. "What are you doing?"  
  
The plan was easier said than done. The Professor woke up after about an hour, but was so disoriented that he couldn't use his powers yet. It was just as well, since Lance still hadn't calmed down and the three dingbats, as Jaysin called them, still hadn't figured out what was going on, even though Scott was in the middle of his third explanation. Pietro was the only one having any success. He had gotten in contact with the Xavier Mansion's computer and hacked into it's server. He was building a picture of where each X-Man was and what condition they were in. He had found a meeting place for those who were in one piece and was tapping into their communicators to direct them to those who couldn't make it to the new HQ. His first priority was to get the mutants together because they could do much more than the average human as far as rescues went. He had long since found the way to the tunnels and they had it marked on the wall, so now he was devoting every bit of his attention to gathering the mutants. The problem was that only seven were able to go find the others and they had only one computer. With the X-Men's computer and the Brotherhood's networked, Pietro could gather information as fast as he could type in a query and single out what he wanted. Needless to say, his end of the search was going fast. He had identified all of the mutants with comunicators and compiled a list of their conditions and locations. The problem was that that was the easy part. The other mutants still had to dig through the debris, carry the wounded- and tend them in extreme cases. It took three of them to work one area, so the most that could be accomplished there was barely anything at all.  
  
"I give up." Scott muttered as he slid into a chair beside Logan and Pietro. "How's it going?"  
  
"I found all the mutants. The problem lies in getting to them. We've got seven mutants who split into two groups to get people out. Group one is working on getting as many out as possible, I think Jean's in that group since she's got telekinesis and group two is working on getting the most drastically injured out. I think they mentioned a stray mutant they picked up who can heal people." Pietro traced the 'floating' strand of his hair with his finger as he tapped buttons half-heartedly. The computer screen switched views between the map of trapped mutants and the map of the two groups, to a map that showed both of them and then it went on to show several video feeds from choppers that Fort Braddock and several newstations had sent. The screen changed again to a map of Bayville as it was now that Pietro was making. It had several blank areas and several that were highlighted.   
  
Pietro noticed Scott's look and explained. "I'm using the cameras to make a general guess at hows things look up there. The blank spots are the ones I don't know about or don't trust my information on. The yellow highlights are places I'm sure are acurate and safe and the red ones are the ones I'm sure of and aren't safe. It won't be long before the reporters notice that the only people above ground are mutants and start spreading rumors."  
  
"Hm. Then make another list, this one of humans and send it to Fort Braddock."  
  
"Great idea, Slim. How's he gonna find 'em?" Logan drawled, throughly pissed that he couldn't be out there helping and looking for someone to take it out on.  
  
"Cell phones. There are enough people here with them to get a decent list. You figure out the details." Scott said as he stood and left to check on the Professor.  
  
"Cell phones, duh. Wanna try calling someone when the tower's out, Scott?" Pietro called to Scott's back. "Of course it might work if I hack into a satellite and bounce the transmissions around... Or I could steal BellSouth's tower... Why not both?" Pietro smirked and began furiously typing. "Hey, anybody's who's bored can help me call these people up..." Wanda sighed heavily.   
  
"I suppose, as long as I get to say what I want to."  
  
"Er... almost. Just let them know that we're making a list to send to the rescue teams. Find out if they're hurt and how many people are with them. Here." Pietro started a computer for each of them. "Just go into WordPad and type it as you go. And pull up another one in case they know any people who're definately dead so we can start a list for that too."  
  
"Dead. As in gone forever?" Kaysin's tragic eyes made it clear that for him, the word death was equivalent to the f-word to a nun. Strictly taboo.  
  
"Yeah. Just in case."  
  
"It will be alright, Kaysin." Wanda said as she arranged her phone, keyboard and devastating comments in front of her and reviewed her arsenal.  
  
"Ja. It can't be as bad as you think it is." Kurt nodded and Kaysin brightened, though neither saw the look Logan and Pietro exchanged.  
  
"Hey. I'll help." Jaysin said as he started his own computer. Soon Ororo and Logan broke down and started computers too. That left Scott and the Professor who were trying to convince Lance that he could turn back to flesh and bone again. The Professor's powers were coming back slowly but surely and he was using his feeble powers to keep Lance from tipping over the edge and starting another quake.  
  
"Oh no." Pietro moaned. Everyone kept going as if they were afraid of what he would say next. "It's gone. It's ~gone.~"  
  
"What's gone?" Scott asked.  
  
"The boat. It's not there anymore..."  
  
A little window popped up on Pietro's computer... 


	20. High Hopes

A/N  
  
Wahoo! Long live the long stories. Yo. The combo of the day is Strawberry Frosted Sugar cookies and green tea with just enough sugar to make my spoon stand up in it. And I drank some Gatorade, but that was at like, three this morning, I think. Thank the gods that I'm not diabetic or anything. I don't know what I'd do with myself.  
  
Anyway, It's Todd's POV again. I'm in Toad Mode.   
  
That was a pun, I'll regret it once I sober up...  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 20- High Hopes?  
  
(Several hours ago)  
  
I hate the dark.  
  
Who cares if I see better than the average human underground? I still can't see in the dark. And it's dark. I'm so damn tired of getting hurt... this is seriously pissing me off. Where am I and how soon 'til I can go back? Grrrr. This is not fun anymore.  
  
It just gets darker and darker, and... wait is that water? How the hell did I wind up back here again? Dammit, damn the damned and damn you. I hate you I hate you I hate you. This isn't fai-ouch.   
  
I look down at the rock I stumbled over. Oh well, the little sins, God punishes immediately. What was I doing? Oh yeah. Damn the rock, damn the water, damn the everything.  
  
I reach down for the rock, fully intending to wreak vengence upon it and the water (guess how) when I realize something's wrong with it. For one thing, it's attatched to something heavy. For another, it's moving and making noise. For another... is this thing glowing? It is. Cool.  
  
"Who ye be, yeh landlubbin' scurvy son of a-"  
  
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   
  
Let's try this again.  
  
I hate the dark.  
  
Who cares if I see better than the average human underground? I still can't see in the dark. And it's dark. I'm so damn tired of getting hurt and being knocked unconcious, though now that I think about it, that falls under the hurt category since hurt always preceeds the unconcious parts... this is seriously pissing me off and I mean that honestly. So...  
  
It just gets darker and darker, and... wait is that a person?  
  
"Hey, thank God you-"  
  
"Don't ye be a-sayin' that word on me ship." A pair of glowing orbs separate themselves from the darkness and hover in front of my face. Just to experiment, I poke one.  
  
"Oh dear." I mutter as absolutely nothing obstructs my finger. Not a good thing, but it could be worse. I might have touched something.  
  
"Oh dear." The lights mimick.  
  
"I'll say. It's finally happened. That last time I fainted was when it really, honest to God happened." The voice starts howling about a forbidden name and something clasps tight around my neck. Maybe in my insanity, I'm doing myself a favor and strangling myself with my tie. Except my hands are touching my legs and I lost my tie. Hmm. Okay, I lost my belt too. By now the voice has stopped and the blood red balls of fire turn yellow.  
  
"Here, now. Don't go all pale on me like that. Am I choking you? I was just being theatrical. It's been a while since we had anyone to scare. We did too good a job last time." I just blink at the voice that seems to be attached to the orbs. All of a sudden the pressure stops and there's a sound of a match being lit. Sure enough, a torch is lit a second later and I'm staring at...  
  
"Muh...muh...oooooooooo...vuh, vuh-" Oh God, what happened to all the air!?   
  
"You can be our cabin boy, just like in that book, whaddaya say?"  
  
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  
  
"Goodness, you're a fearful one. Calm yourself." I push the voice and accompanying body away and scramble for the other side of the room. "It's alright Todd. It's perfectly alright."  
  
"How do you know my name, whaddaya want from me, I'm too young to die."  
  
"Die? Oh." The voice laughs. I'm getting tired of all these voices. "Your wallet had your ID in it, son. Calm down. You aren't going to die here, at least not by our hands."  
  
"Our?"  
  
"Can I turn the light on?"   
  
"I dunno. Can you?" I ask, wondering how skeletons can move.  
  
"Ha." The thing lights a small desk lamp and I see that this time, it's a person, complete with skin and hair. He looks a little like one of those pirates from the books, but then again, don't they all? "Welcome to my ship. I'm Captain Wannamaker. Or Captain Bob, as the crew prefers to call me when they think I can't hear."  
  
"Your crew is dead."  
  
"Not really. They're undead."  
  
"And that's better because..."  
  
"The dead stay where you put them."  
  
"Ah. Thank you for clearing that up."  
  
"No problem, lad. You seem to be lost though. Where are you from?"  
  
"Bayville." Is all I say. To be perfectly honest I don't like this guy and his 'undead' crew  
  
"Well, we've got a load of lost souls to drop off, and we're on a deadline. We can drop you off if you like."  
  
"Uh. That's alright. I'm not a lost soul."  
  
"It's not a problem, really. I think Bayville is a stop of ours."  
  
"Er..."  
  
"Quite a few of them there actually." The Captain muttered as he stroked his mustache. "Wonder what's going on anyway..."  
  
I'm thinking as hard as I can, but not really getting anywhere. So I decide to do the next best thing and not think at all. The energy I conserved by not thinking was forced to my lungs and legs, and I just let them do all the work for me.  
  
I force my way to the deck of the ship and stop cold. We weren't in the cave anymore. We're at sea. There's this weird thump behind me and I turn around slowly. Thanks to Pietro's obsession with horror movies, I already know what happens next.  
  
"'Fraid we can't let ye go matey." One skeleton says. It moves more like a snake and has teeth like a... a... something with very sharp pointy teeth.  
  
"Thought so." I say and peer over the edge of the boat. There's a really heavy fog rolling in and I can't tell if there are sharks or monsters or anything.   
  
"Todd, please, just calm down." The Captain says to me from somewhere behind the mountains of bones he calls a crew.  
  
A stong gust of wind picks up and I stare at them trying to decide what to do. Until I look past the skeletons, into the distance behind them. It's water alright, but a long way down. Too long. I can't help myself from looking back over the rail, down, down and down some more. We aren't at sea. We're above the the water not in it.  
  
"Todd, let me explain."   
  
I. Hate. Heights.  
  
kaoru wada 


	21. Enter the Sand

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 21-Enter the Sand  
  
The whole room went silent.  
  
"Whoa. I thought there were limits on his power or something." Kurt blinked several times as he looked at the computer. "Why are they getting worse?"  
  
"I have no idea, but this isn't good. The quakes are making other plates shift and cause even more of them. It's like a domino effect." Pietro's fingers were flying across the board so fast that the clicks made by his nails on the keys became more of a hum than anything. "Half of Bayville's gone. There's no way we're getting out of here without a fleet of Tonka trunks. Or maybe Caterpillars, I think they make heavy duty toys, too. Of course, chances are that they'd all be sucked down too."  
  
"So we're in a sink hole?" Storm asked with panic in her voice. "We're trapped down here, with a building on top of us and no one can reach us because we're stuck in a *sink hole*?" (My English teacher would kill me for that one)  
  
"No, no, that's not it at a-" Scott tried to calm Storm down but Pietro, entirely unaware of Ororo's phobia, cut him off.  
  
"Actually, the building was dragged down around us. There are some cameras still working and-" he tapped a few buttons and the screen showed a clear blue sky. "We are probably the only thing standing in Bayville. This place used to be about thirty feet below ground."  
  
"Oh God." Scott muttered.  
  
"Out." Ororo gasped. "Out. Now."  
  
"I'm afraid we can't get out yet. The door is still buried, but... Stretch your hands above your head. Everything above where your fingers are is out in the open. I'm sure someone will land a helicopter on top of the building. When they do, The wind will scatter the sand and they'll see the top of the door. It's a matter of hours."  
  
Professor Xavier was splitting his attention between calming both Ororo and Lance and only heard a little of what Pietro said. He was so preoccupied with managing the two of them that it didn't occur to him how quiet it was, not only in the shelter, but everywhere.  
  
"Do you guys realize what this will do to us." Wanda grinned around the room. "We'll be famous."  
  
"Infamous, Wanda. We're mutants. This is our fault and we are the only survivors. Look at this place. If we're found here, like this, everyone will know we were up to something. They'll call us mutant terrorists and lock us up. Or worse." Kurt ran his hands slowly through his hair.  
  
"So. What do we do?" Pietro asked anyone.  
  
"Do you hear that?" Scott asked as he left the Professor's side and slowly walked to the door.  
  
"Yeah. Sounds like someone's knockin'." Logan said and he looked around the room for a confirmation.   
  
"We may as well." Scott said with a sigh and stood by the door with Logan. He nodded to the older mutant and flung the door wide open.  
  
In tumbled Evan, Jean, Rogue and Kitty.   
  
"The others." Jean coughed up sand. "Are coming. Supply truck. Survivors." She drew in a ragged breath and smiled widely around the room. "Long time no see." 


	22. Get It Over With

Governor's School is a curse. Really. I'm going to try to keep writing, but it's getting harder and harder to find time to write and what I do manage is crap. It might be a while between updates, but this will work. At least until I can find a suitable way for Jean to die in TLA, but that's something else entirely.  
  
PS. I'm sober this time- no wierd combinations of sugars or radioactive substances to add to the levity. THe teachers here don't like it when I'm too far off my rocker.  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 22- Get it Over With!  
  
Todd breathed deeply and sank to the floorboards of the ship. "Down." He muttered, afraid to speak any louder for fear of the slightest breath making the ship too heavy to fly any more.  
  
"You needn't worry. We're almost there. Please, back away from the rail, Todd." Captain Wannamaker inched towards Todd slowly with one hand extended and the other waving the rest of the crew away.   
  
Todd sat there and stared over the edge of the ship, vaguely aware of a strange tapping noise coming from the edge. He peered over carefully to stare right in the face of a skeleton with a bright blue bandana covering one eye socket. THe skeleton was clinging to the side of the ship with eerie blue fibers that seeped from cracks in it's bones and held tight to the ship like suction cups. It paused as if to decide what to do next and then reached up towards Todd.   
  
He scrambled away from the edge towards the Captain, but remembered the man at the last second and kicked out with his powerful legs. He leapt right over the Captain and onto the deck behind him. He landed precariously on the steering wheel, crouched and ready for another jump. Then, at the worst possible moment, a skeleton burst out of a hole behind Todd and yelled something about Bayville, though Todd didn't catch exactly what since he had jumped so high that he almost hit his head on the crow's nest. As he fell, he kicked off against the mast and hurtled through the dark.  
  
"No, boy!" Captain Wannamaker yelled as he and his crew (most of whom had assembled underneath the ship in case Todd fell) raced to catch the mutant. "It's not there anymore!"  
  
Todd was far beyond their grasp and they could only stare hopelessly in the direction he had leapt. "Bayville's gone, boy." The Captain whispered.  
  
"What'll we do, Cap?" The skeleton witht he blue bandana asked.  
  
"I supose, we'll see if he made it." Wannamaker answered softly. "Take us down."  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
"Okay, let's be rational." Scott called over the excited talking. Besides a supply truck full of survivors both human and mutant, Jean had managed to procure a truck of provisions. THere was some food, but most importantly, splints, bangades and clean water. "It still might be a while before we get out of here. Pietro, how's that list coming?"  
  
"You're kidding right? THe list is useless. According to it, half the X-Men are dead, yet we're looking right at them. I... forgot to take into account the people who were too preoccupied to answer the phones. Or had them on vibrate or-"  
  
"Yeah, that's okay. You're only human."  
  
"So what next, bossman?" A black teenager asked as he looked up from bandaging his little brother's arm. "I mean, it's gonna look funny that this place ain't gone too. And what wit' you bein' muties an all."  
  
Scott bit his lip for a moment before answering. "Don't call me that. My name's Scott. And yes, all that had occured to me, but we can't go anywhere else with so many injured people here."  
  
"Look, my lil' brother's one a' you too. I gotta watch his back, see. If you know someplace else we can go, stay and get yo ass shot up, but tell me somethin' first."  
  
Scott stared blankly at the boy for a moment.   
  
"Ah, his brother's a mutant too, and he'd rather face the tunnels than the weloming committee." Pietro provided.  
  
Scott again stared blankly.  
  
"We're going in the tunnels, Slim." Wolverine said.  
  
"But we can't-" Scott stopped as Wolverine began slashing at the adamantium walls, sending sparks all over the room.  
  
"You heard him, bossman. How we gettin' outta here?"  
  
"Scott, okay. It's Scott." He took a deep breath. "Who are you?"  
  
"Abe. And this is Tyler."  
  
"Wait, wait, wait." A woman held her hand up. "Are you guys leaving? Because I'd rather take my chances with you." There was a chorus of 'Me, toos'.  
  
"Look. This isn't going to wor-." Scott stopped talking as he noticed Wolverine pause and begin sniffing the air cautiously.  
  
"Well?" Abe asked.  
  
"That's one mystery solved." Logan said.  
  
"What?" Scott looked around the room suspiciously.  
  
Logan didn't answer but he stared at Jaysin and Kaysin sitting in a corner with a group of kids surrounding them.  
  
"What? Did we do something?" Jaysin asked flatly.  
  
"Get us out of here and our little secret goes nowhere else, bub."  
  
"Secret? I don't have time for this." Jaysin responded as he stood up.  
  
"Oh I think you know what I'm talkin' about. Just like you knew where Toad was the whole time. I don't know exactly how you knew, but I know you did."  
  
"Hmph. You're being ridiculous." Jaysin smirked.  
  
"Hey, we better get moving if we expect to avoid getting caught, donchathink?" Pietro interupted their staring contest.   
  
"Yeah, I mean, we have people to look out for, right?" Kaysin added, nodding vigorously.  
  
"And we should go." Kurt finished. He jumped to his feet and started pulling Wanda and Kaysin up as well.  
  
"No. I think we should stay here." Jaysin said, still staring hard at Logan.  
  
"I think he's right." Logan agreed.  
  
Wanda looked from one to the other. "What the hell is going on here?" she demanded.  
  
Jaysin opened his mouth to answer her, but looked straight up at the ceiling first and gasped.  
  
Everyone else looked up too, just in time to see none other than Todd materialize above them. There was a millisecond when everything stopped.   
  
THen he fell right on top of Jaysin with a sickening thud.  
  
"Down." Todd muttered as Jaysin moaned and rubbed his head.  
  
"This is a very bad day. Why can't we just get it over with?" he sighed.  
  
And then someone knocked on the door. 


	23. Knock on the Door

I've noticed the levity is starting to leak away from the story like mucus from the nose of an allergy stricken human. Or maybe like that weird clear ooze that leaks out of cracked eggs. Or something. Anyway, just so you know, this is a great compromise for me. Sacrificing lotsa deaths and stuff for humor. Continuity for a story line that actually goes somewhere... It's more than I can bear. I'll just have to take my frustration out on my other stories...  
  
Anyway. The story.  
  
"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 23- The Knock on the Door  
  
Todd moaned and put his hand on his head. He looked around and saw lots of dark shapes that looked kind of like people, but may have just been figments of his damaged mind. He became aware of a strange noise that was echoing through his skull. Todd thought about that for a second. It wasn't that the sound was strange, it was kind of familiar, but the fact that he heard it now that he was- or should have been- dead, really confused Todd.  
  
The noise stopped and Todd nodded breifly. That was enough to send a sharp burst of pain into his head that made him wish he was dead. After a few minutes, though, the pain stopped and Todd sat in the quiet dark.  
  
It was great, he could almost breath without seeing bright purple and pink butterflies in front of him. Of course, something had to go wrong. Something always went wrong. This time it was light. It started as a tiny line of brightness zigzagging its way across Todd's line of sight. It was interesting, even though it started up a dull ache right between his eyes. Then the line got bigger and brighter. That was bad, since the ache got worse. Todd turned onto his other side to avoid the light, but it was really, really bright.  
  
'Why me?' Todd thought as the light- and pain- got worse and worse. 'Why not someone I don't like, like... the blue freak?'  
  
Todd sighed heavily. There wasn't anything to do but deal.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Kaysin woke up with a start. He took several deep breaths and tried to get his bearings. He looked around, expecting to be in the Control Room. Unfortunately, he wasn't. In fact, he was on a couch that looked suspiciously like one that was at Wanda's house. Kaysin sat up slowly. Interesting. Maybe he had been sleep-walking. But...  
  
"I thought the house was gone..." He said out loud.  
  
There was a yelp somewhere to his left. Lance straighten up his hair and blinked sheepishly. "Uh, did he call?"  
  
At Kaysin's blank stare, Lance scowled and picked up a cushion from the couch. He hurled it across the semi-dark room, where it hit someone who muttered a long string of profanity.  
  
"Summers..." Lance's jaw dropped. "Summers, I think you've been around us for too long. I never knew those words were in your vocabulary."  
  
"They aren't Lance," Scott shot back, but not from the corner that Lance had thrown the pillow in. "But you better believe that they're in Logan's."  
  
"So did everyone fall asleep?" Lance asked, trying to change the subject and hoping that Logan hadn't fully awoken.  
  
"I didn't." Scott said. "And neither did the Professor or Jaysin. We haven't gotten a word from Todd yet. It's been almost 24 hours now."  
  
"Huh? Only 24?" Kaysin asked, totally lost. Hadn't they just found Todd? Didn't he fall from the ceiling? And why was the house still standing?  
  
"Yes, but it really does feel like more. The professor decided that if he couldn't find Todd, he could try to find some of the other mutants who might try to hurt one of us." Scott handed Lance a cup of coffee and, after a second to weigh the risks, he gave one to Kaysin as well.  
  
"And?" Logan asked. He felt a twinge of satisfaction as Lance winced, but decided to save his punishment for later.  
  
Scott shrugged. "And, there's no trace of anyone even near Bayville, except the X-Men and us." From his corner on the floor, Logan tightened his fist as he realized what Scott had said. 'the X-Men and us.'  
  
"So. What are the chances that he's still alive?" Logan asked, more out of spite than anything.  
  
"They're still 50%, Logan. He either dead or alive." Scott answered, managing to keep his cool even though Logan was pushing him a bit too far.  
  
"Don't stress it, Summers. He's just mad cause you're with us now." Lance smirked. "Okay, it'll be light soon, so we might as well get ready to search for him again. Once 'Tro gets up, we'll let him search inside the house again. He's probably got some kind of trick he can do with those computers to find Todd. The rest of us will look for him outside." Lance stood up and stretched. Scott nodded and headed back to the kitchen. "Hey, Logan... step outside, please. I need to talk to you."  
  
Kaysin watched them both leave. "Well, now I'm confused."  
  
"Kaysin," the Professor called from the kitchen. "would you mind coming in here? I have a problem I think you can help me with."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"So, what's up?" Logan asked Lance. Lance sat on the piano bench and offered Logan a seat across from him. Logan sat down warily. There was something about Lance's attitude that set warning bells off in Logan's head.  
  
"I don't know whether we just got off on the wrong foot, or whether we've actually got some deep rooted hate of one another, but either way, you and I have a problem." Lance leaned back and propped his elbows up on the piano cover. Logan gave the boy his coldest, most bored look. He had never noticed a problem between them and had no clue what Lance was talking about.  
  
"What problem might that be?" Logan asked.  
  
"Scott and Kurt."  
  
"Meaning?"  
  
"You never bothered to get to know us before they joined our ranks, Logan." Lance stared hard at Logan. "But since they switched teams, you give them nothing but grief. In the Brotherhood, we're family. We're all we've got and if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. Neither Scott nor Kurt would ever complain about the way you and your X-Men treat them, but we notice and we're getting pissed. You have every right to hate them for leaving your team for ours, but keep it to yourself. If you intend to harass my Brotherhood, then I don't need or want you here and you can just go back to your perfect little X-Men."  
  
Logan sat still for a minute after Lance stopped talking. He understood what the kid was saying. "What do you mean by my X-Men?"  
  
"I mean that you run the X-Men the same way that I run the Brotherhood. Xavier and Magneto are the ones that everyone gives the credit, but we know who's in charge. I'm telling you, one leader to another, that I don't let my people diss yours on your turf and I don't expect yours to diss mine on my turf. It's just that simple. I appreciate what you guys are doing for us, but if you're only here to cause trouble, you'd better leave."  
  
"And if I don't?"  
  
"Then things will happen, Logan. Things that don't have to happen. You aren't the only one who remembers Valzinameku. We all learned the depths of our strength in that fight. Don't make me show you how far those depths reach."  
  
Logan snorted and pulled out a cigar. "We'll see, Sport. We'll see." He walked out of the room and into the kitchen, smiling as if it was all a big joke.  
  
Lance didn't mind though. He knew that the Brotherhood was safe.  
  
His Brotherhood.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


	24. Look into the Crystal

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 24- Look into the Crystal  
  
"Kaysin, are you all right?" Professor Xavier asked him as soon as he walked into the kitchen.  
  
"Well, I'm kinda confused, but I think I understand. It was just a dream." Kaysin sat in a chair and put his head on the table.  
  
Scott glanced at the Professor and then looked back at Kaysin. "Are you sure that's all? You don't look too good."  
  
"Just tired. That's all."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"No. Yes. But it'll sound really stupid."  
  
"No stupider than you usually sound." Jaysin muttered darkly.  
  
"That's alright, go ahead." Scott took a seat at the table as well.  
  
Kaysin lifted his head, but decided it was too much trouble. He put it back on the table. "I dreamt that we figured out where Todd was, but it was underground and when we looked for him with the computers we saw the skeletons and Lance got scared so there were a bunch of earthquakes and then Bayville was gone and we were trapped and then Todd fell out of the sky and then I woke up in the dream, but I was really just seeing from Todd's point of view and he was waking up- not me and do you understand any of what I'm saying?"  
  
There was a minute of silence as everyone's mind struggled to follow what Kaysin was saying.  
  
"You had a dream about Todd." Scott said.  
  
"Yeah. And I think I know where we might find him. That is, I have a very general idea and it's better than standing around here doing nothing."  
  
"So, where?" Scott leaned forward.  
  
Kaysin sighed. "I think he's underneath the house."  
  
"We already looked under there."  
  
"No, there are passages that go from the house to this space underneath. I think that's where he is."  
  
"So where is this secret passage?"  
  
Kaysin fidgeted and glanced at the Professor, who kept his face neutral. Kaysin stood up and opened the cabinet that Lance had found the tunnel behind.  
  
There, caught in a seam, was a tuft of purple.  
  
"Unbelievable. That looks like Todd's shirt... How did you know?"  
  
"It happened in my dream." Kaysin pushed against the back of the cabinet and the whole wall sank away.  
  
"Hang on. I'll go get the others." Scott ran from the room, leaving the Dantzler brothers and the Professor staring into the hole. The whole crowd came barging in a minute later.   
  
"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Pietro glared at Kaysin. He didn't know what to say, so he just shrugged.  
  
"Alright. Let's hurry up and find him." Lance started passing out flashlights and giving instructions. "We'll spilt into groups of three so we cover more ground. Don't get lost down there."  
  
"Yeah, like we needed you to tell us that." Logan muttered.  
  
"Can it, Logan. I already told you where you can go."  
  
"Don't push it, bub."  
  
They all stepped into the hidden passage and took a look around.  
  
"Oh, yeah," Kaysin began, but Logan cut him off.  
  
"There's something in here." The mutant unsheathed his claws.  
  
"Yeah, it's-"  
  
Logan stepped forward. "I smell blood."  
  
"Oh, boy." Kaysin said.  
  
There was a soft whooshing noise and Logan shouted and swiped his claws at his attacker.  
  
"Logan, it's a rake."  
  
"Shut up, I think I see him." Logan stepped forward on the rake again and swore as it clunked him on the head.  
  
"Logan. It's a RAKE."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
Kaysin shined his flashlight on the ground at Logan's feet. The rake was half visible beneath the dust. "Just like in my dream."  
  
"So where is he?"  
  
"Hmm." Kaysin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don't know."  
  
There was a very pointed silence at that.  
  
"I mean, I could tell you what should happen next, but that wouldn't help at all. Besides, by this time in my dream, we had already tracked him with the computers."  
  
"Of course!" Pietro raced up to Kaysin and hugged him. "You're a genius! All we have to do is use the computers, there's this really extensive map of underground Bayville. It'll be easy!"  
  
"But-"  
  
"What?"  
  
"We can't. Because then we see the skeletons and Lance does his earthquake thing and Bayville is destroyed and that's bad so we have to just wait."  
  
"Uh-huh. Can someone translate, please?" Lance looked around the group. "I thought I heard my name, but it may have been the word ants."  
  
Jaysin shrugged. "Who knows. He's been right so far, so I say we go with it."  
  
"But what about Todd?"  
  
"He'll drop in sooner or later." Kaysin said confidently.  
  
"You saw this in your dream?"  
  
"Yep. He falls through the ceiling after Bayville gets destroyed."  
  
"...Really."  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Then I guess we should just wait."  
  
"Yes, that's what I said."  
  
"Kay, you worry me sometimes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"People, especially Todd, do not just fall through ceilings. They just got done putting a new roof on the place."  
  
"My roof?" Lance interrupted. "He's gonna wreck my roof? Hell, no."  
  
"But, Lance. That means we get to do it again." Freddy pointed out. "It would probably hurt Todd though."  
  
Pietro stared at Freddy, Lance and Jaysin. "I don't believe this, you guys are putting this much faith in my sister's boyfriend? Are you insane?"  
  
"Obviously. Why are we still down here? My allergies are going to kick ass if I stay in here much longer." Lance looked around the group. "SO, anyone want to stay here and look for Todd under all this dust, or shall we wait?"  
  
"I'm tired of waiting." Logan growled.  
  
"Then you're welcome to get lost down here if you want to. I'm going back upstairs."  
  
"You're not scared are you?"  
  
"Yes, I'm terrified that I'm going to sneeze and drown us all in snot and dust." Lance shot back on his way to the kitchen, closely followed by Pietro and Kaysin.  
  
"I'll just, you know. Surf the net or something." Pietro muttered as he headed for the basement.  
  
"Whatever." Lance answered. Everyone else decided to keep searching.  
  
In the kitchen, Professor Xavier asked what had happened. Lance told him and waited for the professor to say something, but the old man was silent.  
  
"What are you thinking?"  
  
"I think someone's hiding a secret from us, Lance. If I were you, I'd keep an eye on young Kaysin. He seems to be a bit more than he appears."  
  
"Well, I hope so, otherwise I'm throwing Wanda out. The longer I'm near the little prick, the stupider I get."  
  
"Now, Lance, that's not a very charitable thing to say."  
  
Lance shrugged. "Where's the Salvation Army sign? I don't bother with charity."  
  
There was a loud thump from above and both the Professor and Lance looked up. "That sounded bad."  
  
Pietro was at their side within the next second. "What was that?"  
  
"Go get the others, I really don't want to go by myself."  
  
"Scared?"  
  
"Yeah, I've never seen anyone's guts before."  
  
Pietro nodded and disappeared.  
  
"Do you think it's Todd?" Lance asked the Professor.  
  
"I can't tell. I still don't sense him nearby."  
  
Lance took a deep breath. "Well, maybe we'll find out why." 


	25. It is Clear

"I Tried"  
  
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)  
  
Chapter 25- It is Clear  
  
Lance and Scott led the rest of the mutants out of the house. Once the huge ladder was up, they looked at each other.  
  
"You first." Scott said.  
  
"Nah, you're better at this hero stuff. Knock yourself out."  
  
"Hey, you're the boss here, you go up."  
  
Lance took a deep breath. "I don't like depths."  
  
"Ah. Well. I guess I'll go then." Scott cracked his knuckles and started climbing the ladder. He only made it halfway up before he suddenly let go of the ladder. Scott had a horrifying moment of freefall before Kurt teleported and caught him in the air.  
  
"Are you okay?" Kaysin asked, wide-eyed.  
  
"Ow." Scott wheezed.  
  
"What happened? Why'd you let go?"  
  
"I didn't let go. He hit me." Scott struggled to a sitting position and coughed weakly. "I guess he's back."  
  
"Who?" Kaysin looked around. "I don't see anyone but us." There was a dull thump nearby and everyone turned around.  
  
There was Todd, tangled in a branch of a tree that skirted the house. "Um. Sorry. I...got scared." He said vaguely.  
  
Scott coughed. "Really? Not half as much as me, that's a fact."  
  
"Hmm. Well, can someone help me, this is kinda... painful." Todd sort of waved at his leg, which was tangled in a branch.  
  
"Todd. You are an idiot." Lance grinned ear to ear and proceeded to untangle his leg. After a lot of tugging and swearing, Todd's leg was freed, but that only seemed to make things worse.  
  
"Gunk. Arg," was all Todd could say when Scott finally made Lance step back so they could take stock of the situation. Todd was hanging from the tree by a thread. It was a short thread that just happened to be attached to the seat of his pants. Besides giving Todd a monster wedgie, the problem was giving Scott a headache.  
  
"This is ridiculous. Logan, do you mind?" Scott turned to Logan.  
  
Logan smiled viciously as he stalked forward. "Not at all, Slim." Todd managed to give a weak gurgle of fear before Logan's claws tore through the tree branch. He landed with all the grace of a buzzard with a broken wing.  
  
"I guess I deserved that." Todd muttered as he righted himself. There was a dull pain in his neck and back, and his head was starting to hurt again, but other than that he was in one piece.  
  
"So glad to have you back, Todd. We were starting to miss you." Scott gave Todd a look that said otherwise.  
  
"Hmm. Is it over?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The Open House? Can I change clothes now?"  
  
Everyone looked at Todd's clothes, or lack thereof. He had managed to retain a sleeve and enough of his boxers to conveniently prevent any embarrassment. "Yeah, you can change clothes."  
  
"Good." Todd nodded wth a very serious expression on his face. "And I think you should stay away from the malt in the kitchen cabinet. It must be bad or something." He limped into the house, completely oblivious to everyone's stares.  
  
Finally, the Professor cleared his throat. "Logan, I believe there's something on the premises that needs to be confiscated. Scott, may I have a word..."  
  
Logan grinned wickedly. Free beer, maybe Charlie was right about this optimism thing... 


	26. Setting the Stage

"I Tried"  
Furor Paxx )  
Chapter 26- Setting the Stage  
  
Scott sat at the table in the kitchen and watched Lance stumble around the kitchen with a bemused smile. It took Lance a long time to coordinate himself in the mornings, and since Scott was used to getting up early, he came down to watch Lance at his worst. Lance knew perfectly well why Scott was always the second person to wake up, and as much as it annoyed him, he decided it was worth watching Scott try to stay up late. Such attempts had been marked by failure, no one in the Brotherhood went to bed before midnight except Scott. He barely lasted until ten. Lance suspected that if he took a page out of Summer's book and went to bed earlier, he wouldn't feel like hell in the mornings, but couldn't bring himself to change.  
  
After Lance spilled the coffee grounds for the fourth time in a row, Scott shook his head and took the scoop out of his hands. "Maybe you shouldn't stay up so late."  
  
Lance glared at Scott. Maybe Jean's mutant power had rubbed off on him... "Quiet."  
  
"Seriously, Lance. Caffeine and little sleep isn't good for your health."  
  
"Said quiet." Lance grumbled and dropped into the chair that Scott had just gotten out of.  
  
"How about you take out your anger on the others. Breakfast will be done in about 45 minutes." Lance grumbled some more, but got up to wake the other mutants up.  
  
It had been almost a year since Scott and Kurt left the Institute. Since then, they all had fallen into a routine. Lance got up first to make coffee and then wandered into the garden until Scott, the second up, got done fixing breakfast. Freddy was usually in the kitchen by then and Todd followed a little while after. Todd got the dishes out, Freddy distributed food and by the time the four of them got done eating, Pietro and Kurt came downstairs. The clean-up was left to them and everyone else left to do whatever Brotherhood-ly things they did every day. That usually involved rushing to get the last bit of homework done and racing to school, but on weekends, life slowed down slightly. Wanda came and went- she seemed to live off junk food and Scott kept a cupboard filled especially for her. Needless to say, she adored Scott. He stayed out of her way, and when she happened to start a conversation with him, he didn't make up dumb excuses to escape. Most of his excuses were legitimate. The food only made him rise in her eyes and he was the only person in the house who hadn't been on the bad end of her hex bolt. The X-Men left them alone except for when Rogue visited Kurt and sometimes they got a glimpse of Kitty and Lance on a date.  
  
In fact, the Brotherhood had calmed down tremendously and fallen into a series of habits. The household ran by rote on the weekdays, but weekends and holidays were another story entirely.  
  
Scott was just thinking about that as he took the toast out of the toaster when Todd came in the kitchen.  
  
"Hey, what day is today?" Todd asked Scott in a vague voice. Todd's eyes were unfocused and the way he was walking made Scott wonder if he had been smoking or something.  
  
"Saturday. Are you alright? I mean, usually it's someone asking you what day it is, not the other way around."  
  
"Um... Yeah." Todd said with absolutely no conviction.  
  
"Hey, Scott... I think Kurt's sick. He's hiding under the blanket and Pietro said he's been acting weird since Thursday." Lance stumbled back into the kitchen and glared his hatred at the pot of coffee on the stove.  
  
"Huh? Kurt's sick?" Scott looked at Todd, trying to tell if he looked sick too. The problem was that Todd always looked sick. "How about you Todd? Think you're sick?"  
  
"Oh no... not at all. I haven't been there in ages."  
  
Scott and Lance eyed the wobbly, glassy eyed mutant with trepidation. It wasn't flu season, allergy season was almost over... there wasn't any reason for the two of them to be sick. "If it's contagious, we're doomed. You know that right?" Lance winced and scratched his arm. It was a nervous habit he had developed a long time ago, but worked hard to hide.  
  
"If it's contagious, we're going to have to hope Pietro either got it and recovered fast, or that he gets it next. I suspect that we'll all get it before long, and 'Tro's the only one who can take care of us. We should quarantine them, just in case. Call Rogue and tell her there might be something going around. I'll go check on Kurt." Scott headed to the door, but paused. "Have you seen Freddy?"   
  
At the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, Rogue put the phone down and sighed. "Kurt and Todd are sick." She said to Jean, who had been next to her when she picked up the phone. "They can't figure out what's wrong."  
  
"Maybe we should take them some medicine." Jean suggested.  
  
"No, I would have offered, but Lance said whatever it is might be contagious, since he's still feeling like..." Rogue paused before she could quote Lance directly. "bad. Still feeling bad."  
  
Jean frowned slightly. "Well, I guess we should tell the Professor that something's going around."  
  
"Right." Rogue agreed. They both eyed each other, waiting to see who would make the first move, either to the door or to the Professor.  
  
"You realize you could just tell him telepathically, right?" Rogue suggested with a hint of malice in her voice.  
  
"Oh, I could, but I think you need the exercise." Jean's voice was just as deadly.  
  
"Actually, I've noticed you gaining a little weight, Red. Might be why Scott left you for that stripper. Very streamlined..."  
  
The temperature dropped a few degrees as Bobby walked through the hall behind them.  
  
"At least I had a boyfriend, Skunkstripe, unlike some people I know who just stare at other people's boyfriends with puppy-dog eyes."  
  
"That would hurt, except for the small little detail that you ran your boyfriend straight into the enemy's arms, darlin' and guess what. You don't what happens at the Brotherhood, so you don't know who your precious Scott's been doin."  
  
That struck a nerve in Jean. "What's that supposed to mean?" She hissed at Rogue through clenched teeth.  
  
Rogue turned away and flicked her hair at Jean. "Nothin, Red. Nothin."  
  
Jean whirled in the other direction, and they both marched away. Jean was halfway to her room when she realized that Rogue had gone straight to the Brotherhood, just like she was planning on doing. With a curse that was most unlike her, Jean raced to her room and slammed the door with as much force as she could. 


	27. Lady Malice

"I Tried"  
Furor Paxx )  
Chapter 27- Lady Malice  
  
As Rogue walked towards away from the Xavier Mansion, she reviewed the past ten minutes detachedly. Why had she and Jean started fighting? Was it something she said? Rogue shook it off. It didn't matter anyway. Whatever the cause, she was right and she knew it so Jean could just go cry.  
  
Unfortunately, Jean wasn't crying. She was planning. If Rogue was plotting to steal Scott from her while he was at the Brotherhood Mansion, then dammit, she was going to stop it all right now. Jean looked over the pile of clothes, CDs, posters and books on her bed and decided she had everything. She crammed as much of it as possible into two duffel bags and her bookbag and then set it all beside the door. She grabbed a lipstick from her purse and headed to Rogue's room.  
  
It wasn't hard to tell which side of the room was Rogue's and which was Kitty's, mainly because Kitty had a few of the same posters as Jean and Jean couldn't even pronounce the names of some of the bands on Rogue's wall. Jean looked at her lipstick. Love's Revenge. Very appropriate, Jean decided and she set to work defacing Rogue's posters. She threw the lipstick tube on Rogue's bed when she was done and stepped back to admire her work. She smiled and went to her room to collect her bags. As they said, the writing was on the wall and it was time to fly the coop.  
  
Meanwhile, Rogue stared up at the cloudy sky. It would rain soon, and though she wasn't as stupidly girlish as Kitty about getting wet, Rogue didn't want to walk all the way back to the Institute with wet clothes chafing her skin. She sighed dramatically and turned back towards home. It was just her luck to get stuck inside with Jean after they got into a fight.  
  
Rogue brightened. She could just go to the Brotherhood Mansion and chill there 'til the storm blew past. Rogue did a few quick calculations and decided she could probably make it to the Brotherhood's place faster than Xavier's and besides, Lance or Scott could drive her back. Rogue decided and headed towards the Brotherhood Mansion, stopping by Fanny's Burger Palace on her way. Rogue had just made it to the front porch when the rain started pouring down. Perfect timing. Rogue knocked on the door and smiled when Wanda answered it.  
  
"Beautiful day isn't it?" Rogue asked and waved the bags of fast food a little.  
  
"Oh, yes." Said Wanda. "Everyone's sick and its raining now. I was kind of hoping you were Kaysin, but since you brought food, I guess you'll do."  
  
Rogue put the bags down in the kitchen and let Wanda rummage through them. She called the Institute and told Kitty where she was and started going through the fridge for drinks.  
  
"We had soda," Wanda sniffed a burger from the bag before setting it aside and staring mournfully at Rogue. "But its gone now."  
  
"Ah," Rogue nodded slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements since Wanda was showing signs of moodiness. "That's too bad. None of the guys got any more?"  
  
"No." Wanda sighed. "They were all throwing up their intestines." Wanda blinked rapidly. "Do you know..." She looked around as though checking to make sure no one was around. "Intestines are pinkish."  
  
Rogue's smile froze. "Really? That's interesting. I never knew that, Wanda. Thank you for sharing it with me."  
  
Wanda nodded and took a big bite out of her burger. Rogue raised a hand to warn Wanda that she had forgotten to take the paper off, but decided it was better to pretend she didn't notice. Rogue turned away and pointlessly opened and closed cabinets until she heard the kitchen door swing open. Scott stood in the doorway.  
  
"Rogue? Why are you here? I thought Lance told you guys we were sick."  
  
Rogue glanced at Wanda, who was still eating the paper on her burger. "Well, do you mind if we step outside, Wanda?" Rogue asked, already pushing Scott out the door.  
  
"Was she eating the paper on her burger?" Scott asked in a low voice.  
  
Rogue just looked at him as if amazed that he dare say it out loud. "Anyway. Jean and I got into a fight. I was halfway here when I realized I'd get caught in the storm, so I grabbed some burgers and came here."  
  
"Well, it was a nice thought, but what if you get sick too?"  
  
Rogue shrugged. "Then its one more reason I don't have to go back and put up with Jean's attitude."  
  
Scott laughed. "I bet she's saying the same thing."  
  
They both turned to watch Lance come down the stairs muttering profanity. He was carrying a basket full of laundry and glaring evilly at everything.  
  
"Hey, Lance, Rogue brought food." Scott said with a grin.  
  
"No." Lance growled. "No more food. They just keep puking. Don't give them any more." He kicked the basket and growled some more as he dragged it to the laundry room.  
  
"He's in a pretty good mood. I don't think I've seen him this excited about anything." Scott joked.  
  
Rogue blinked. Scott was cracking jokes about Lance's temper... Weird.  
  
There was a loud clap of thunder and the lights flickered and died. "Oh great." Rogue heard Scott mutter, all jokes gone. Almost immediately following the thunder, there was a knock on the door. "Who would be out in this?"  
  
He groped his way to the door and opened it. "Oh. Jean, what are you doing out in this storm? And what's on your shoulder?"  
  
"Oh, Scott! I can't take it any more!" Jean threw herself in Scott's arms just as the lights came back on.  
  
Scott pried Jean off and stepped back. "Why don't you come inside, Jean? It's a lot drier in here."  
  
Jean didn't move. She was rooted to the spot and so furious she couldn't speak. Across the room, Rogue was also experiencing a complete muscle-lockdown, and it had nothing to do with Jean's mutant powers.  
  
"Oh, look. It's a drowned rat." Wanda walked up to Jean, completely oblivious to the fact that she was standing in the No Man's Land between Jean and Rogue. "I had a pet rat once. It was dirty, so I tried to wash it. It looked like you do, only dead. Are you moving in?"  
  
Scott noticed the bags that Jean had with her and inwardly groaned. "Look, Jean, I don't know if this is going to work."  
  
Jean ignored Scott and calmly wrapped her arms around him. She planted the most serious kiss she could muster right on his lips. Scott almost died right there in her arms, but even though it was a moment he had only dreamt about, he couldn't help but notice with a pang of regret that Jean wasn't looking at him. She was staring right at Rogue, and not even the stars flashing around Scott's head could blind him to the dark malice radiating from her eyes. 


	28. Dish Best Eaten Cold

"I Tried"  
Furor Paxx )  
Chapter 28- A Dish Best Eaten Cold  
  
Pietro sat beside his sick lover and tried to keep from jumping up and screaming. There was absolutely nothing he could do to help Kurt and knowing that was driving him up the wall. He fidgeted a little and raced around the room a few times. He managed to say seated for five minutes afterwards before he jumped up and reorganized his closet. He sat down again and checked the clock. Twenty minutes. He had only lasted twenty minutes before checking the clock. There was a light tapping sound behind Pietro and he spun around in his chair to find where it was coming from.  
  
"Hey, Pietro." Lance's voice whispered from the speaker next to the light switch. "The situation's critical on the ground floor. Jean just showed up with all her stuff, and when she saw Rogue here, she kinda flipped."  
  
Pietro's heart- already racing like a rabbit- tumbled to a stop s though it had been shot at point blank. "We have to fight Jean?"  
  
"No. We need a clever ploy to get her out of here. She's practically raping Scott. We gotta do something, Tro! Think."  
  
Pietro tried. "I could pick her up and dump her at the Institute."  
  
"We're talking about Jean, Pietro. She'll just stop you with her telekinesis. And besides, it's raining."  
  
"Yeah, yeah." Pietro looked back at Kurt. Suddenly, he got an idea. "Hey, you still going out with Kitty, or is this your off week?"  
  
"Kitty's going out with that Matthew brat." Lance didn't seem amused. "What's my personal life got to do with us saving our house from the X-Men?"  
  
"Well, if you don't mind shooting your reputation to Hell... you could always walk in there all guns and tell Jean to get off your man."  
  
"And how is that..." Suddenly, what Pietro was saying hit Lance full force. "You think you're funny, huh. Get your queer ass down there and get that X-Freak out my house! NOW!"  
  
Pietro snickered. Lance had no stomach for grown-up humor.  
  
Wanda looked around the room, finally realizing that something strange was going on. "Hey, why are you here again?" She asked Jean. Jean didn't answer, mainly because she always ignored Wanda, but the fact that she still hadn't broken off her kiss with Scott might have had something to do with it too.  
  
"Whoa." Someone outside said. "You guys need a room?"  
  
Wanda recognized the voice immediately and it took every ounce of her self control to not run and jump into Kaysin's arms. "I have one, thank you. Would you care to see it?"  
  
Jean finally pulled away from Scott and looked at the guy in the doorway.  
  
"Ah, Kaysin." Scott gasped. "Um, come in." Scott tried to escape Jean's grip, but failed.  
  
"I'd love to, Scott, but there's this cute, wet red-head in the way and I think she'd get the wrong idea if I tried to squeeze past her."  
  
"You." Wanda pointed at Jean, knowing that even though the X-Man's back was to her, she knew she was being targeted. "Get out of my home. Now." Wanda made sure there was no question about who was boss in her voice, and even summoned a hex bolt in case Jean tried to test her authority.  
  
"You," Jean turned around slowly, finally relinquishing her hold on Scott. He inched away, further into the house, while Jean flicked her hair back and tossed a challenge to Wanda. "Make me."  
  
"NOOOOO!!!" Lance came barging up the stairs from the basement, but he was too late. Wanda took Jean's challenge and tossed it back in the shape of an extra painful hex bolt. Then it was on.  
  
Jean telekinetically hurled a vase, the table it was standing on and a hat rack at Wanda, who dodged the vase and table and neatly sliced the rack in half with another hex bolt. Wanda returned fire with a barrage of hex bolts that sent Jean racing for the relative safety of the couch. Wanda lept over the couch to follow her opponent, but Jean caught her in mid air and sent her flying backwards into the wall. Wanda crashed into a picture on the wall and went down with it. She was back up in a second though, and hit Jean in the face with a hex bolt. Wanda screeched a curse and dove on top of Jean. She landed two hard punches in Jean's gut before the telepath recovered enough to hurl Wanda, once again, into the wall. This time, though, Jean didn't let Wanda drop to the floor. She hit her with a mind bending attack that left Wanda limp. Jean stepped back.  
  
"Next?" She asked, smiling. Lance looked like he was about to burst into tears at the state of his house, and Kaysin was desperately trying to revive Wanda. Scott was staring at Jean with disbelief. Jean took a deep breath and opened her compact mirror. Rogue was standing right behind her.  
  
"Here." Rogue said with a grim smile of her own. She spun Jean around and punched her hard in the stomach. Jean dropped her mirror and doubled up, labouring for breath. Even as she sank to her knees, though, Jean grabbed Rogue and threw her backwards with her power. Rogue crashed through the closed fire grille, sending pieces of glass and burning wood everywhere.  
  
Scott and Lance were closest, and they both ran to pull her from the fireplace. Before they could help her, though, Jean used her telekinesis to stop them both in their tracks.  
  
"Let the traitorous bitch burn." Jean hissed.  
  
"Jean! What's wrong with you?" Scott yelled. "She'll burn to death!"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Rogue was thrashing weakly in the fireplace, she couldn't think straight and every time she tried to get out of the fire, she cut herself on glass. A small voice in the back of her head told her she was going to die.  
  
Suddenly freezing cold water doused her and the fire. Before Jean had a chance to scream in fury, a silver streak tear-assed across the room. Jean tried to follow Pietro's movements so she could grab him with her telekinesis and crush him like the puny bug that he was. Pietro knew what she was planning to do, so he kept moving. As he ran around the room in as random a pattern as he could, he picked up everything he could lay hands on and threw it at Jean, hoping to distract her long enough for Lance and Scott to get free.  
  
Jean tired of Pietro's game quickly and brought him to a stop the same way she stopped his sister. She forced a jumble of thoughts into his mind and watched him speed right through the kitchen door. The sound of Pietro crashing into the oven and collapsing in a heap seemed deafening to the mutants in the living room.  
  
Jean turned back to Rogue, and frowned. Kaysin had pulled her out of the fireplace and laid her out at the foot of the stairs. The human stood, back to the staircase and stared at Jean with ice-cold eyes.  
  
"Something wrong?" She asked, voice dripping poison.  
  
"Depends on how you look at it." He answered calmly. He spread his feet and braced himself. "If you think you can hurt my friends, yes, some thing is wrong."  
  
Jean laughed. "Then we must fix it." She held out an open hand and closed it into a fist. At the same time, she telekinetically grabbed Kaysin around the waist. Her grip was so strong it forced the breath out of him, but he never lost his look of cool confidence.  
  
"This is what I'm talking about. You seem to think you're in control here. You're wrong. Heh. Very wrong." He lifted his arm and Jean had time to see a flash of dark metal in his hand before Kaysin pulled the trigger of a small, but serious pistol. She let go of Kaysin, Scott and Lance and threw up a shield, even though there was no way she'd make it in time. Jean shut her eyes and screamed. 


	29. Lie to Me

"I Tried"  
Furor Paxx 29- Lie to Me

Jean opened her eyes, cautiously. The bullet was there, less than a centimeter from her face. She screamed again and dove to the ground. 

"Well. Isn't this a surprise." Kaysin said as he picked up off the floor where Jean had dropped him. "You could have done this earlier."

"Silence, human."

The voice sounded completely evil. The hairs on the back of Jean's neck raised and she carefully raised herself to her hands and knees.

"Now, X-Man. Stand and take your punishment."

Jean felt herself stand, even though her legs were so weak she could barely crawl. Jean closed her eyes again and willed her heart to stop trying to crawl out of her throat. She was just getting ready to die, when God himself made a move on her behalf.

"Pietro?" Kurt coughed weakly and slowly made his way down the stairs. "I heard screams. Is everything okay?" He peered into the super bright room and squinted heavily. "I can't see. Where are you?"

"Go back to bed, Kurt." The evil voice said, only is sounded less so.

Kurt plopped down on the stairs and sighed. "I'm tired of staying in bed. I'm not sleepy. Not..."

Jean blinked as she realized that Pietro was the one behind her. That was all it took for a new plan to formulate in her mind. She reached out with her telekinesis and picked Kurt up. "Let me go, or I'll squeeze him so hard his eyeballs pop." She stepped back and turned to face Pietro. Any confindence she had left at that point was dashed away.

Pietro was hovering a full foot above the ground with an assortment of kitchen knives between the two of them. "I'd invite you to try, but there is no need for idle threats. Leave. Now."

Jean paused for a second before dropping Kurt and running out the door. She put up a telekinetic shield just in time to stop the hail of knives from tearing her to pieces.

Back in the Mansion, Pietro slammed the door shut behind her. "We shall need to retrieve those later." He noted absently. "Will you call the Institute, or shall I?" he asked Scott.

"I'll get it. You take care of Kurt. Lance, put Wanda in your room and then come help me clean this mess up. Kaysin," Scott studied the human briefly. "You try to get the big pieces of glass out of Rogue's arm, don't touch her skin, though." As everyone hurried to follow his orders, Scott picked up the mobile phone and rushed to get some ice.

"Oh, my Stars and Garters." Dr. Henry McCoy took one look at the critically wounded Rogue as Logan and Lance brought her in on a makeshift stretcher and abandoned Jean's minor cuts and bruises. "What happened?"

"We got into a little fight." Scott lied. 

McCoy stared at him. "You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

Scott stared back. "Would you rather I say it was an accident?"

Logan growled and hoisted Lance up by the scruff. Operating on the assumption that Lance was in charge of the Brotherhood, and that Rogue's injuries were the fault of the Brotherhood, Logan was ready to slice their leader to tiny pieces.

Sensing his impending doom, Lance tried to defend himself, but his powers weren't working up to par. There was a rumble deep underneath the Institute, but other than that- nothing. Lance made a tiny, defeated sound and then just hung limp in Logan's grip.

Logan stared at the teenager, waiting for the kid to do his worst. "Hey, you sick or somethin?"

"He's tired Logan. We're all tired. Not only that, but now that Rogue's safe, we're all going home. We'll call." Scott waved, already halfway out the door with the rest of the Brotherhood right in front of him.

"What's going on?" Logan asked himself. Lance, still held firmly in the air, snored softly. "Hey! Summers? Summers!"

Lance opened his eyes and groaned. Every muscle in his body was screaming and his head felt worse than usual

. He stumbled downstairs, mind fixed doggedly on one thing: coffee. The trip to the kitchen took forever. Lance yawned and set to work. 

The water was just beginning to boil when he noticed something was wrong. First of all, Scott wasn't there. Lance snapped out of his daze immediately. Scott was up to something, he reasoned. He had to discover what. 

Lance turned around and stared, slack-jawed, as Jean walked into the room. They stared at each other for an eternity before the scream that had been building itself up in Lance's chest made it to his mouth.


	30. Morning of Mourning

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx 30- The Morning of Mourning

Scott, Todd, Pietro, Kurt, Freddy, Wanda and even the twins, Kaysin and Jaysin all stared at the empty coffee pot.

"So."

"Hmm."

"Guess we should find him."

"Blech."

"Geflobble."

"Ge-wha?"

"I'm too tired for this."

"Could someone at least fix breakfast?"

"I will!"

"Someone besides you."

"Need. Coffee."

Scott looked around the group without moving his head. "Why can't someone else fix coffee?"

"Too early."

"Don't know how."

"Doesn't taste right."

"Don't like coffee."

"You're joking, right?"

"I'll do it!"

"Oh, God, no. Anything but that."

Scott cast another look at the people around the table. He looked at the cold, empty pot on the table and began to despair. "Where is he?"

"Dunno."

"Meh."

"Ehhhhhh?"

"Good question."

"Why would I know?"

"Maybe he's at Rogue's house!"

"Idiot."

There was a weak grinding noise as Scott shifted gears. "We should see how she's doing."

"If you say so."

"Don't care."

"Fine, fine."

"Where's the phone?"

"Who cares about her? Where's my coffee?"

"I'll call!"

"Mmmm."

Scott glared at the pot. "Damn it all. Where is that fool?" Kaysin walked back into the kitchen a second later with the cordless phone.

Todd, Pietro, Kurt, Freddy, Wanda, Jaysin, and even a pair of flies in the corner all stared at Scott.

"Oh, hi!" Kaysin gushed into the telephone. "Oh? Really! That's great, we were all wondering where he was-" Kaysin shut up as Scott yanked the phone from his hands.

"DAMMIT! TELL THAT MORON TO GET HIS TAIL OVER HERE! WE WANT OUR COFFEE!" Scott slammed the phone down and stalked back to his chair. There was a dangerous glint behind his red glasses.

"Ah, well." Kaysin's voice was shaky. "I guess Lance will show up soon. Can I fix you some coffee, Scott?"

Scott's glasses sparkled for a second. Then, with a fury that even Freddy marveled at, Scott threw the empty pot and hit Kaysin right on the head without so much as looking in the human's direction.

The rest of the Brotherhood slid down in their seats a little. Lance couldn't get back soon enough.


	31. The Game

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx 31- The Game

Scott glared menacingly into the eyes of his opponent. Pietro sat across from him at the kitchen table with Kurt, Wanda and Kaysin peering over his shoulders. Freddy, Todd and Jaysin were at Scott's side, leering at Pietro and his fans. The game was Connect Four.

Amid the clinking of plastic pieces and gnashing of teeth, a steady swooshing sound could be heard coming from outside. Lance was working on a new project, and he wouldn't tell anyone what it was.

Pietro stared at the pieces in the board that separated him from Scott. No matter where he put his piece, Scott would only be two moves away from winning. It was agonizing to know he was going to lose to Summers for the fifth time. Pietro sighed and let a disc slide down a random column. Scott ignored the piece, deciding to add insult to injury and set up yet another way he could crush Quicksilver's ego. Kurt and Kaysin both winced as the piece fell into the column and waited for Pietro to make his move.

There was an opening for Pietro, he could take advantage of it, but Scott would only block him at the last moment. Pietro moaned and placed another random piece.

Scott smiled. "I win." He let one last piece slide into the center column and smirked. The bastard had set Pietro up three ways and the Speedster hadn't even noticed. Pietro pushed his chair back from the table and left the room without saying a word. His entourage followed, muttering idle threats about what they would do next time.

"So, who's up next?" Scott asked cheerfully. There was an immediate onslaught of excuses as everyone tried to find something else to do.

Lance tramped into the kitchen just as Jaysin was settling into the chair opposite of Scott. Lance glanced at the game as he opened the fridge and grumbled about the lack of anything edible. "Where's Wagner?"

"With his boyfriend." Scott answered as he dropped another piece. "And Pietro is probably moping someplace. Wanna play?"

Lance gave the Connect Four game a look so blank that Scott looked at it himself. "I'm a bit more mature than that."

"Aw, you know you like games, Lance. C'mon. Name it."

"No. I've got better things to do."

"Ah, I see. You're afraid I'll beat you."

"At Connect Four? I wouldn't be caught dead playing that first grade game."

"Well then, tell me what you play so I can kick your ass at it too."

Lance froze.

Scott yawned. "What? I learned it from you."

"You think you can kick my ass at my best game?"

"Yeah."

"You? You think you can beat me at my own game?"

"Yes. I know I can beat you and your game right into the dirt. Name it and let's go."

"Is this a good idea?" Jaysin asked. "I mean, what if he picks a sport or something. You only said game, right?"

"No," Lance closed the fridge door and turned around slowly. "Todd, get the board."

Todd gulped and scurried out of the kitchen. He was back in about two minutes with a dark mahogany board and two small chests. He carried them reverentially and placed them on the table just as carefully.

Scott looked at the board. "Checkers?"

Lance placed one chest in front of Scott and pulled the other towards himself. Scott opened the chest. "Chess? You play chess?"

"Prepare yourself, Summers. Your defeat will be total."

"Hah, dream on, Alvers."

Lance put his pieces on the board and waited for Scott. "You can move first."

Scott smiled. "Thanks."


	32. In Yo Face

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx 32- In Yo Face

They had been playing for five minutes. Lance moved a rook and took one of Scott's pawns. Scott moved his queen and took the rook. Lance stared Scott in the eye.

"Checkmate."

"What?" Scott asked. "I don't see checkmate."

Lance stood. "Of course you don't. Study it for a while and then count the ways I've got you. Meanwhile, I'll be outside." Lance put all of Scott's captured pieces back into the chest. Scott started to protest, but Lance just walked out of the room.

"What is his problem?" Scott grumbled as he stared at the board, trying to figure if he had really lost.

"Lance is the master of chess. No one's beat him yet." Todd pointed at Lance's queen, which had Scott's king in check. Lance's second rook and one of his knights also had the king in checkmate.

Scott growled. "Now you tell me? Fine. I'll just have to get better at it then." Scott straightened out the board. "Sit down, Todd. You're not leaving til you win."

Outside, Lance was standing, dumbfounded and heartbroken, completely the opposite of what he should have been after beating Summers into the dirt at his favorite game.

The stripper, jigsaw and sander were gone.

In their place was the mutilated pile of wood that had once been Lance's masterpiece.

Lance sat down on the porch and stared at the splinters and broken boards. The shock completely rattled him and he sat unmoving for almost an hour before instinct finally took over. Lance walked, dazed, into the kitchen. Scott was tapping on the table as he waited for Freddy to move one of his pieces.

Scott glanced at Lance as soon as he entered the room. Lance just stood in the doorway, staring at Scott as though the former X-Man had an extra arm growing out of his head. Scott turned back to the board just in time to see Freddy knock half the pieces over.

He turned his attention back to Lance. "What do you want now?"

"Gone... They're gone. Sander, stripper, saw..." Lance sobbed. "gone."

"What?" Scott blinked. "Gone? Where?"

"GONE!" Lance screamed, suddenly the dire truth of the situation hit him. He was a worker without a tool, a father whose children had been torn from him. "THEY'RE GONE!" He threw his arms in the air and howled before collapsing into a sobbing heap on the kitchen floor.

Scott, Freddy, Todd and Jaysin stared at him. "But where did they go?" Scott asked, slightly bewildered. "How did they go? It's not like they have legs or anything." Suddenly he gasped. "Do you mean that someone...stole from us?"

Lance sobbed loudly in response.

"How dare they? We're the Brotherhood of flaming Mutants! We should be doing the stealing!" Scott stood up so fast his chair fell over. Lance paused mourning to look up at Scott and Pietro, Kurt, Wanda and Kaysin all poked their heads down the stairs to see what was going on. "We'll find them dammit, and when we do..." Scott's visor, in a now familiar move, glinted dangerously. "not even the damn X-Men will stop us."

After a moment of dramatic silence, Pietro snorted. "Is that all? I'm booked the rest of this week, and I've got... stuff to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you'll have to tell me about a week in advance when we're doing the revenge thing."

"Ooh." Kaysin raised his hand. "I'm free on Fridays, as long as it's after five. And before midnight. We've got curfew."

Scott's fist twitched for a second. "Alright, then. Friday at six." He acceded, since he had a debate club meeting every Monday and tutoring on Wednesday.

"Well, don't think I can make it then." Lance admitted. He stood up and straightened his clothes. "We've got games on Fridays."

"That's right... Friday's bad." Jaysin had pulled out a cell phone and was checking his calendar. "In fact, I think I'm busy every day but Saturday and Sunday. Oh, man, I forgot about about the SAT on Saturday. I don't think that's a good time to plan anything."

Scott stood there, in the center of the kitchen as the rest of the group pulled out Palm Pilots, day planners and cell phones. He tried to remain calm as they called out possible dates, only to have them shot down by someone who had something planned already. He tried... he really did, but alas, he failed.

"FINE DAMMIT! WE WON'T GET REVENGE!"

The whole house fell silent.

"There's no need to be like that." Pietro pouted. "We're just saying you'll have to catch us sometime around February next year."

A crimson bolt of energy sent Pietro scurrying for safety.

"Forget the two hundred dollar sander, and the one hundred fifty dollar stripper and the two hundred fifty dollar jigsaw. What we need is a calendar."

The Brotherhood of Mutants all looked at each other. "Y'know... that would be a good idea." Lance thought about it. "Time management and all."

"I dunno," Pietro said. "That means you guys would be able to track me down."

"Heaven forbid." Kaysin muttered. Pietro glanced at him and the human smiled innocently.

"Okay, then we could just write down that we're busy doing something for that time period." Scott looked over the Brotherhood. "Alright. Maybe then we'll find time to recover our stolen property. Unless you want to spend another seven hundred dollars on replacements."

The vote to make a calendar suddenly became unanimous.


	33. A Calendar For All Mutants

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx 33- A Calendar for all Mutants

The Brotherhood lay sprawled across the various bits of furniture in the living room, waiting for Scott to officially begin the meeting. It didn't HAVE to be official, but that's usually how it ended up. Scott sat on the coffee table, while Todd perched on the TV. Freddy had his own couch and the two couples had claimed the other couch. Lance sat at the piano and Jaysin had his legs up on the beat-up love seat. Everyone was there, so Scott finally decided to call the meeting to order.

"Hey, pipe down, guys. We've got business to discuss."

"It's a calendar, Scott, pull your head out your pants already." Pietro drawled.

"Time is money." Todd pronounced from the TV.

"We have to decide what kind of calendar it's going to be. It's got to be something we can all have access to."

"Cell phone." Pietro suggested. "It's fast, convenient, it has an alarm, and, if need be, we can call each other for last minute changes."

"Internet." Kaysin countered. "We all don't have phones, and it's not like we all check them. I mean, we can't even take them to school. Besides, the point is that we don't make last minute changes."

"I can't use either of them." Freddy objected. "The buttons are too small."

Everyone sighed. "So I guess we need a physical calendar." Scott shrugged. "We'll have to make one then. There's no way we'll be able to buy one big enough for everyone's stuff."

"How much space could we all possibly need?" Lance asked.

Wanda interrupted. "How would we organize it? By time or by person?"

"Time would work best. But should we do a weekly calendar or monthly?"

Scott moaned. "Stop, stop, stop. We're getting ahead of ourselves. How about we dedicate a wall in the basement to the calendar? We can paint over the whole thing, make it white and shiny like a dry erase board. They've got paint that does that, right?" He looked at Pietro for a confirmation.

"I guess you could use it that way."

"Alright. That's settled. Then we'll do it monthly. How many hours do you think we'll need every day?"

"We may as well put all twenty four on it for overnight things." Jaysin yawned.

"Hey!" Kaysin suddenly jumped up. "We can have each day divided by hours and each hour divided by people! That way we can easily tell who's doing what every day." He looked around proudly.

"Huh?" Scott stared at Kaysin.

Lance translated. "He means that we should break the calendar into hours and have a specific spot for each person to write what they're doing every hour."

"Hmmm. It makes sense I guess." Scott admitted. "All right. When will we start?"

"Well, I can't do it anytime this week."

"Soccer practice tomorrow and a game the day after, maybe on Saturday."

"You forgot about SATs on Saturday again. Kaysin, Jaysin and I all have to take it then."

"That's right. Oh well, I can't help until sometime during the week after next."

Scott sighed. He'd suspect them of making excuses just to get out of the work, except that even his schedule was packed. "Alright. Three weeks from now we're taking Saturday and Sunday to straighten this out. No excuses."

Lance grinned. "What time exactly are we talking about? Morning, noon, night?"

Scott glared at Lance. "We'll be working all forty-eight hours if you keep it up."

Lance ducked out of the room and retreated to the kitchen. Scott was likely to keep a promise like that and an entire weekend of work was not on Lance's list of things he wanted to do.


	34. For the Love of Lost Wheels

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx 34- For the Love of Lost Wheels

"Let's get this straight. We need markers, rulers, tape, and paint. Pietro and Kurt are responsible for that stuff. Lance and Freddy are the painters and Wanda and Kaysin will divide the wall into thirty-two blocks." Scott tapped his pen on his personal planner, sipped some lemonade and nodded in satisfaction. "Make sure its not too high up or too far down because Freddy and Todd have to be able to write on it. You two," Scott looked at Pietro and Kurt. "Hurry back and try not to spend too much. We're on a budget until we either find those tools or replace them. Jaysin, Todd, you two are with me. We need to put locks on the tool shed and while we're at it, we'll put one on the front and back door, too." Everyone bustled off to get started on their assignment while Scott looked on approvingly. He was beginning to wonder why he ever joined the X-Men. The Brotherhood was just as efficient when properly organized and motivated and besides, no one wanted to join the Brotherhood. There weren't any girls to get involved with and that alone simplified life. Sure, the Brotherhood wasn't seeing much action nowadays, either in a positive or negative light, but the escape from girls and the entire load of responsibility made it worthwhile. Not only that, but somewhere amongst the rough looking louts was a killer lemonade maker. Scott glanced in the fridge, noted that the pitcher was almost empty and made a mental note to buy more lemons and sugar.

Scott sighed contentedly and walked to the door, where Todd and Jaysin were waiting for him. He caught the tail end of Todd's question and asked him to repeat it.

"Where'd you park the car?" Todd shuffled onto the porch and stood aside for Scott to walk out. Scott charged out of the door in his usual military fashion but stopped at the steps. His car was gone. Scott frowned and patted his pockets. He reached in one and pulled out his keys. Sure enough, the car key was there.

"Did Lance make a copy of my key?" He asked. Usually Scott and Lance didn't even touch each other's vehicles, but since they were the only drivers in the Brotherhood and Lance's Jeep was less than reliable, they had to share sometimes. Scott scowled and stalked inside the house.

Lance was pulling rollers and paint brushes out of the junk room when Scott found him. "Huh? Why would I make a copy of it? I'd just ask to borrow your key if I needed your car."

Scott believed him. Lance abhorred riding in Scott's car as much as Scott did the Jeep. "When was the last time you borrowed it?"

"Couple of weeks ago. Why?"

Scott watched a small spider skitter across Lance's shoulder. "It's not in the front yard. I was hoping you had moved it or something."

Lance shrugged, oblivious to the spider, which fell off of his shoulder but managed to attach a security line and pull itself back up. "I thought it was there last night. Ask the twins if they saw it this morning."

Scott thanked Lance and turned to walk away. "Hey, Lance," Scott faced Lance again. He brushed the spider off Lance's shoulder and walked off. Lance stared at Scott's back, wondering what the hell had gotten into the man.

The entire Brotherhood of Mutants stood in the very empty yard. There was perfect silence as the two leaders of the Brotherhood first tried to comprehend what was going on and how to deal with it.

Lance was the first to speak. "First of all, we have no wheels." He muttered. He was thinking out loud, but it wasn't helping much. "None. Second of all, we only have one car." He blinked dumbly. "Without wheels."

Scott made a small whimpering noise. "My car."

"We need to call the police. Report this. And..." Lance swallowed hard at the thought of the police. He looked at his housemates. "Screw this, man. We're gonna find the thievin' bastards and rock their world. No one steals from the Brotherhood of Mutants and gets away with it. Are you with me?" There was silence as everyone waited to see how Scott would respond.

Scott roused himself from an almost comatose shock. "Hell yeah. Rocks and stuff. And if there's some blood and bruises to spare, then dammit, we'll give 'em that too." Behind them, the rest of the Brotherhood burst into a round of cheers.

Lance turned back to the Jeep. "Awesome. Now let's get some tires and find those bastards."

"Ah, just a sec." Pietro interrupted. "Remember the calender?"

"To hell with the calendar. This is a flaming car, Tro. Prioritize, man." Lance stared at his stripped car. "Who am I kidding? We can't afford new tires. Or old tires. Anyone owe you any favors, Scott?"

Scott thought about it for a while. "No. Not anyone who's speaking to me anymore. I sort of... you know, turning coat will do that."

"No problem," Lance nodded his understanding. "Anyone else?" There was silence again. "Alright. We'll flip a coin to decide it."

Scott blinked. "Decide what?"

"Whether you or Pietro will have to sleep with someone to get the cash." Lance dug into his pocket for a coin.

"Wh- what? I'm not..." Scott stared at Lance to see if he was joking. The look on his (and Pietro's) face made it clear that he wasn't. "I'm not a whore!"

"Got any better ideas?"

"Why don't you?"

Lance's face dropped into a mask of annoyance. "Scott, look at me."

Scott looked. "Alright, I get your point, but... look, I'm not sleeping some strange girl, and I'm not sleeping with a girl I know."

Pietro shrugged. "Then sleep with a guy. They pay more anyway." Scott's jaw dropped. "I'm just playing, Scott. Don't be so serious. Look, you don't really have to sleep with anyone. Just promise to go out on a date with them. All the girls have been after you since you officially broke up with Jean."

"Am I supposed to ask my girlfriend for money? Do you have any decency?"

"How much do tires cost?" Kaysin asked.

"Hundreds of dollars, Kaysin, hundreds. By the time we get the money, my car will be long gone."

Lance sighed. "Then there's not choice. We have to call the cops."

"What will they do?" Scott demanded. "We're mutants, remember?"

"Or we could call the X-Men for help getting the car back."

Scott thought about that. "What's the station's number?"

Lance swore. "I'll call Xavier's. Maybe Logan will help us out. Kurt, standby to beg Rogue for assistance. Kaysin, we'll need you nearby in case we need sound effects. Remember, the tears need to sound real, but don't get too loud or they'll get suspicious. The rest of you..." Lance looked them all up and down. "Well, if push comes to shove, we've got Scott."

"What?"

"Don't play, man. This is your car we're talking about. You can kiss Jean and act like you love her for your car back, right?"

It was Scott's turn to swear. "Fine. For my car."

Inside, Lance cleared his throat and made the call. After two rings, a man picked up the phone. "Hey, Logan?"

"Glad you called. I was just on my way over."

"Really?" Lance glanced at the crowd of mutants huddled beside him and shrugged. "Why?"

Logan growled. "Someone stole the van. Is Lance there? Maybe he knows the punks who did this."

Lance winced as soon as he realized that Logan thought he was Scott. "Lance is here, but he convinced me to call because we had no place else to turn." Lance threw his free hand up as Scott whispered furiously. "Someone stole my car and took the tires right off the Jeep."

"Are you serious?" Logan asked. "Damn. These punks have guts to steal from the Brotherhood and the X-Men. Any idea who it might be?"

"Not at all. The Brotherhood hasn't gotten into trouble for a while. But, y'know, someone did steal about seven hundred dollars of equipment from us earlier."

"Really? What was it?"

Lance sighed. "The stripper, sander and jigsaw. They wrecked my masterpiece too."

"Sorry to hear it." Logan didn't sound at all sorry, but Lance took the man's comment for what it was worth. Logan would have just grunted if he knew he was talking to Lance, but since he didn't know, Lance intended to reap as many compliments as his ego could stand from Logan.

"So where do we go from here? We've gotta stop this, but Sc- Lance and I are stuck here."

Logan didn't seem to notice that Lance had almost given himself away. "I'd offer to pick you up and get tires for the Jeep, but all we have now is the motorcycle." Scott yanked the phone from Lance and hit him on the head.

After growling at Lance, Scott put the phone to his ear. "Logan, aren't we going to call the police and report this? Even if they don't help us, there might be humans whose cars are being stolen and sabotaged as well."

Logan snorted. "Yeah, right. They'll blame it on you and say the case is closed. Lance, put Scott back on."

Scott yanked the phone from his face and stared at it. He cautiously put it back to his ear. "This is Scott."

"Lance, this isn't funny. You act like I can't tell your voice from Scott's." Logan's voice changed from exasperation to full anger. "If one of your people stole our van, Lance, your ass is so-"

Scott shoved the phone at Lance and stormed away.

"Hello?" Lance asked tentatively.

"Scott, what the hell is wrong with Lance?"

Lance looked after Scott. "I'm not sure. He's kind of worked up about people stealing from the Brotherhood. He wants revenge, I guess."

Logan sighed. "Well, I guess I can't blame him for that. Whoever the thief was, they stole the van from our garage, right under my nose. They took the gas and the engine from the Porsche. I'm afraid to drive anything because I have no idea what else they fiddled with."

"Wow. We didn't even check to see if they did anything else to the Jeep."

"Well, I can fix a Jeep. Just hang tight, I'll see if I can't get a set of tires down there. Once we get your Jeep straightened out, we'll find the bastards who sabotaged our wheels." Logan hung up the phone.

Lance put the phone down slowly. He turned to the rest of the mutants. "We need to get out of here, fast. I think something's going on at the Xavier Mansion. It's just a hunch, but I think its a very bad idea for us to hang around here."

Scott poked his head in the room. "What, Scott? Did your buddy Logan tell you to get out quick?"

Lance rolled his eyes. "No, but thanks to you, he's ready to skin me alive. I am so not going to be around when he arrives."

"Sure, fill up the tank while you're out." Todd smirked.

"Funny, Todd and very mature." Lance's voice rose in anger. "Look, I don't care what you punks say, I'm outta here. The man's psychotic on the best of days and he's looking for a scapegoat. If you stay, that's your business." With that, Lance practically ran out of the room.

The rest of the Brotherhood stared after him for all of a second before running after him. If Lance was freaked out enough to abandon the assumed safety of the house, then there was no way they'd be caught there without him.

As it was, they were just in time to see Logan climb off of his motorcycle.

Logan and Lance stared at each other.

Logan sniffed the air cautiously and then shrugged. "New haircut?" He asked, with a strange look on his face.

Lance, shrugged back. "That was fast."

Logan eyed the beat-up jeep. "Yeah well, there wasn't much traffic."

Scott elbowed his way through the gaping crowd of Brotherhood mutants. He charged down the steps of the porch and stopped in front of Logan. "Do you have any idea what's going on? I mean, who aside from one of the X-Men, who would dare steal from the Brotherhood?"

Logan growled in what could have been agreement and then spun around to stare down the long driveway. "Well, well. What's this?"

Scott's red convertible was racing towards the mansion, driven by a man who was looking more and more like Scott by the second. Logan glanced back at Lance, who was rapidly shifting from being completely floored to choking on fear. The convertible slid to a smooth stop in front of the group and Scott stepped out of the car.

"What's going on here?" Scott asked as he jumped from the car, one hand on his visor.

The Brotherhood of Mutants stared from the new Scott to the old one. They were even dressed the same. The old Scott stared at the new one with a gaping mouth. "That's my car. He took my car. And my face..."

Lance took a deep breath. "Is this a nightmare?" The new Scott glared at him.

"I suggest you get lost, I'm in a bad enough mood without shape-shifting punks assuming my position in my own home."

Lance looked at Old Scott, who looked back and shrugged. Lance snorted. "You're the imposter, thief. Get the Hell off our property."

New Scott didn't say a word. He didn't have to, because the low-level energy burst he released hit Lance in the chest so hard, he couldn't have heard anything but the low ringing of blood in his ears.


	35. My Face, My Life, My Identity!

"I Tried"

Furor Paxx

Chapter 35- My Face, My Life, My Identity!

Pietro prodded Lance in the chest. When Lance didn't move, Pietro stabbed him in the ribs with one of his long, thin fingers. Still nothing.

"Is he dead?" Kurt whispered over Pietro's shoulder. "What do we do if he's dead?"

"He's not dead." Scott knelt beside Lance. The Brotherhood stared suspiciously at him, wondering whether he was an imposter.

"Of course he isn't." Said the second Scott. "I'm not a murderer."

The Old Scott, or at least the one everyone assumed was Old Scott, stood and faced off with the New Scott. The New Scott gave the Old Scott a strange look. "What's your problem, Lance? If you had come home to see some stranger who looks, talks and acts like you getting chummy with your friends, you would have just cracked his head open and demanded answers from his cold corpse."

Old Scott stared at New Scott in shock. 'Who the hell is this guy who looks, talks but certainly doesn't act like me? Wait, does he act like me? Do I act like him? Oh my God, do I really look like Lance?' Old Scott blinked rapidly. "Who the- Who are you?"

New Scott ignored the question, instead crouching down to check on Lance. Lance was coughing and writhing in pain on the ground. Reassured that Lance's life was in no danger, New Scott stood and kicked him in the stomach. "Get lost." He ordered and then charged through the group and into the house.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"So, I take it you guys are having some trouble beyond thieves, huh." Logan stared at Lance with that strange look again.

"Iffeel shick." Lance moaned.

Pietro sat down hard. "Now that you mention it, my head hurts."

Logan watched as, one by one, the Brotherhood either retired to their rooms or collapsed where they stood. Finally, only Todd was left standing.

"So…" Todd began, trying to think of something civil to say to Logan, or maybe how to escape the X-Man. "Come inside?" He offered, sure that Logan would reject it.

Instead, Logan snorted and went through the front door like he owned the place. Todd immediately regretted the invitation. Even so, he followed Logan inside and into the kitchen.

"Where're the goods?" Logan sniffed his way to the oven and stared at a plate of cookies.

"Hm? What?" Todd looked around. "What goods?"

Logan strolled over to the cabinet that Todd was prone to sleeping in. He flashed a toothy smile at Todd and opened the door.

Inside were three bottles of rum and a few bottles of dark liquid that must have been more hard liquor.

Todd laughed nervously. "Oh, that… well, I have no idea where that came from. Nope. Must 'a been there forever. Wow, if you want it- take it. Please."

Logan grasped two bottles in each hand. "There was more the last time I was here. A lot more. Any idea where it went?"

Todd shook his head vigorously. "Uh-uh. No, sir. No clue, no idea, no guilt. I am innocent."

Logan snorted. "Whatever, runt. Now look, unless you want me to practice my slice and dice technique on you, you'll keep these safe for me." Logan shoved the four bottles in Todd's arms.

Todd looked at the bottles and then at Logan. "Why not just take them with you?" He asked in a frightened whisper.

"Chuck won't let me drink at his place, so I guess I'll just drink here."

Todd laughed again. "Yes, yes. Brilliant idea. Drink, drink." He gestured for Logan to take the bottles back.

Logan growled. "Maybe later. For now I gotta find your wheels." Logan headed for the door, but turned around in the threshold. "Todd, if I find out you been drinking any of that stuff…"

Once again, Todd panicked. "Oh no, not me- never! That stuff," Todd choked on his words, "bad- very bad. I… I'd pour it out if I wasn't sure you'd want it."

"Good kid." Logan grinned and walked out of the house.

Todd dumped the bottles in the sink and left the kitchen just in time to run into Scott (old Scott or New Scott- he couldn't tell.) who was barreling outside. "My car," he shrieked in indignation. "That bastard stole my car!"

Todd peered outside. The motorcycle and convertible were zooming away.

He sighed and crawled up the stairs to his room as Scott dove for the telephone. Today was a Bad Day. A very Bad Day.


End file.
